Imagine these scenes: A drunk student stumbles past the darkened Chem Building with her purse swinging loose on her arm. A resident entering South Quadrangle lets a stranger trail in through the dormitory's door behind him. A student walks home from the library with his new Macbook Pro, Blackberry phone and iPod after a late study night.

It seems that given the regularity of these situations ne'er-do-wells must be licking their chops, eyeing the University's campus like an all-you-can-steal buffet. So, with such ripe conditions, are college campuses festering with criminal activity?

Everyone knows about Seung-Hui Cho, the senior at Virginia Tech University who killed 32 people one Monday morning in April, most of them sitting in class in unsecured buildings. And most of us have heard about the rape and murder of Eastern Michigan University freshman Laura Dickinson in an EMU residence hall last December. Resulting evaluations of campus safety found universities around the country lacking in advanced security measures that might have prevented the violence.

What everyone might not know is that despite not being at the cutting edge of security, crime at universities and colleges is relatively rare, at least according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education. A few years ago, it reported that crime rates are consistently lower on campuses than public areas. Its report was compiled based on a decade's worth of crime statistics gathered through the Clery Act of 1990. The legislation, prompted by the murder of Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, P, requires all post-secondary schools to release data on crime on campus and adjoining public property.

Statistics from the Clery Act are the public's main resource to gauge the safeness of individual campuses. The Department of Education's website contains search tools where those concerned can compare three years of crime numbers from one campus or set of campuses to the average numbers of another grouping, defined by population-size, region or type of program.

How does the University of Michigan measure up?

Between 2003 and 2005, the University had an average of 23.6 reports of forced sexual assaults per year, while the national average for universities like it, four - year institutions with residence halls and more than 20,000 students - was just seven reports. The University of Michigan also reported higher than average incidence rates for arson, aggravated assault and robbery.

Judging from the numbers, the University deserves a Gotham-campus reputation - as out of place as Detroit would be if it was located in Canada. But statistics alone can't provide an accurate or complete picture.

Measuring campus safety is more complex. Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Diane Brown said there are several factors that play into why the University has a higher incidence of reports. Aside from having a large on-campus housing capacity and hosting events like football games that draw thousands of people from outside the University, differences in reporting crimes by victims and universities could skew relative statistics. It could be that other university administrations interpret the requirements of the Clery Act less stringently when they submit their statistics or that students here are more likely to report offenses, Brown said.

Discrepancies in how universities report crime make it difficult to compare safety on two campuses or to even have an accurate idea of the crime rate of one school. Above the results for a crime statistics search, the Department of Educations posts a disclaimer warning that it "cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data reported here," because it doesn't independently verify the information.

There were nine sexual offenses reported at Ohio State University in 2003 according to numbers reported by the school under the Cleary Act, but that number doubled in 2004 and tripled 2005. But OSU spokesman Rick Amwes said the higher amounts weren't due to a boost in crime but rather changes to the school's crime reporting procedures after a Department of Education workshop instructed OSU security officials to redefine the geographical areas included in the report.

Brown said the University also recently revisited its reporting procedure and determined that it does not need to include accounts of crime reported to employees of Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness and not to police. The policy change should lower the incidence of certain crimes in the University's following reports.