The situation is a familiar one. Returning from an evening out, it's 3 a.m. and only the occasional streetlight pierces what is otherwise a pitch-black night. Strolling past alleys and winding around corners, you fear a cloaked figure lurks somewhere beneath the cover of shadow. Senses begin to heighten, muscles tighten, and a sudden nervous anxiety rears its ugly head.
Fear of crime is something that resonates deeply within all of us. As a student in a large city and subject to odd hours and mind-altering substances on a regular basis, this fear perhaps feels natural. But this reaction is not quite so simple; its genesis is not as obvious or warranted as one might think. To be sure, Madison has its share of shady customers and a host of scenarios that are rife for crime to occur.
Even though that may be the case, that fear is largely misplaced. According to the Capital Times, Madison ranks near the bottom in rates of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and theft, and motor vehicle theft when compared with midwestern cities with populations of 100,000 or more. While statistics can never be completely accurate, or totally inclusive, the extremely low crime rate Madison maintains is certainly something to be proud of. For a city of its size, the place we all call home is in fact quite safe.
Of course there are incidents of crimes no one is proud of. Rape statistics for college campuses over the past 20 years have increasingly become cause for concern, and the mixture of alcohol and late nights for many students certainly warrants scrutiny.
It is indeed that same combination that set this entire campus into a frenzied state of shock with the disappearance of then UW sophomore Audrey Seiler. Much was written and debated over such a tragic occurrence: A young woman with the brightest of prospects , suddenly whisked away by a dark and indiscriminate figure, the likes of which many feared was still present on campus even after Audrey's safe return.
There is no need to debate the merits of what Seiler did or did not do, or what her punishment should or should not be. The real tragedy in this case is undoubtedly that, for all the attention it received, there are many more such tragic events that take place on campuses all over the country that go without notice, without concern. The notion that a woman who was, by all accounts, a poster child for a \good student"" disappearing is headline news and worthy of national attention discounts the fact that such things DO actually happen to much less ""front page-worthy"" individuals. Those instances largely go ignored by many of the media outlets, as they don't represent the same level of tragedy that a girl of Seiler's make up does.
It is indeed curious that, for all the attention paid and worry exerted, girls much like Audrey Seiler have the lowest risk of having a crime committed against them in many categories. Such a paradoxical scenario is quite commonplace in Madison and in other cities across the country. Those groups whose victimization rates are actually the lowest often maintain the highest fear of crime. According to the Uniform Crime Report, which is calculated by data from police departments across the country and then interpreted by the FBI, white women have the least likelihood of being a victim of homicide.
That's not to say that white women are invincible to a crime as morally repugnant as murder, but it does pose some questions about how our fears and stereotypes develop. It would not be much of a stretch to say that we, as Americans or even as Madisonians, live in a culture of fear. We're obsessed by it; it permeates our television, our news,and indeed our very existence.
We must re-examine our tendencies, question our assumptions, and examine what reality has to say before we develop the sort of situational neuroses described in the beginning of this article. To truly conquer the infestation that is crime, we must first understand it, and how that plays into our perceptions of it. Fear of crime is a nuanced and complicated proposition, but it is one that deserves to be flushed out with a critical and honest discussion.
Bob Probst is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies.
