Words matter: A qualitative content analysis of campus crime alerts and considerations for best practices

Abstract

Objective An impediment to an informed discussion of the impact that campus crime alerts have on college campuses is the dearth of research on the topic. This study explores the composition of campus crime alerts and the ways they convey and (re)produce meanings concerning victimization, perpetration, responsibility, and consent. Methods: This study uses an qualitative content analysis of a sample of 3,702 campus crime alerts from 55 universities in the United States. Results: Three themes (Central Actor, Overgendering, and Gratuitous Content) emerge. When the victim is portrayed as the alert subject using a passive voice and the crime is framed within a gendered, editorialized narrative, the alert focus shifts to the victim’s rather than the perpetrator’s identity and behaviors. Conclusions: The wording of alerts may compromise the safety of the campus community by reinforcing misguided expectations for behavior and shaping misleading perceptions of risk; considerations for best practices are explored.

Keywords:

• Campus crime alerts
• campus safety
• gender
• timely warnings
• victimization

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States.

Notes

1 University gg posted a “summary of campus activity reported to or observed by the university police department” daily in addition to different, separate campus crime alerts, which resulted in a total of 2522 alerts. The remaining 54 universities comprised the remaining 1,180 alerts.

2 All emphases are added unless otherwise noted.

3 This will be discussed further in the Gratuitous Content portion of this section.

4 The identification of the suspects as “dark complexion” males is problematic in the sense that it can perpetuate stereotypes about crime and race without providing truly meaningful or useful tips. While relevant data in this study are limited, other work provides a helpful analysis.³⁴

5 While “sex” refers to biological characteristics and “gender” refers to social construction, in this paper we use the word “gender” exclusively, since we can only respond to the representation provide by the alert.