Upgrades Make Long Beach State 3rd "Most Secure" University in the U.S.

Safety initiatives at California State University Long Beach, the state's most populous Cal State campus, have earned it one of the "Most Secure" in the nation, according to Security Magazine.

CSULB is the only California school to be recognized, and one of only 27 in the U.S.--for the second straight year. This year, the university ranks third, behind No. 1 University of Pennsylvania and No. 2 Ohio State University. 

For the last three years, CSULB has had the lowest reported crime rate throughout the CSU, the magazine reported.

The school's Chief of Police, Fernando Solorzano, said the ranking validates the measures the university has taken to ensure the safety of the over 35,000 students and 4,000 faculty and staff that populate the campus.

In recent years, the University Police Department has added an emergency communications system to alert the entire campus community in the event of an emergency. With this, came a camera system that allows officers to monitor activities throughout the campus; Fernando said, this helps the officers not only assist with crime, but also prevent crime from happening.

“We have the ability to know what is going on and where at all times,” he said. “The camera system has allowed us to get to the scene as trouble is starting, and often times before. Our technology has been enhanced, our police staff as been augmented by a guard service — and these are big reasons for the results we have seen.”

Solorzano said there is also an increased police presence on campus, and with that came the growth of a community outreach program. The program, which is still growing, gets the campus community involved in their own safety, and has helped with the officer/patron relationship.

“We have definitely made a lot of improvements,” he said. “But we don’t want to be complacent, we want to continue to search for ways to make this university safer. The safety of the students, staff and campus community is top priority.”

The success of the changes are evident when looking at statistics alone. In 2005, there were eight sexual assaults/forced rape, and in 2010, there were none. In 2005, there were 113 motor vehicle thefts compared to 27 in 2010. And then the decrease in burglaries, 19 in 2005 and seven in 2010. 

“We have seen significant improvement in every area, our crime rate continues to drop, which means the safety of the campus continues to increase, and I am very pleased with that,” Solorzano said. 

Security Magazine’s rankings are broken down in “16 vertical markets,” which enables organizations, or in this case universities or colleges to compare programs. According to the magazine, the purpose of the “Security 500,” is to create a reliable database to measure an organization compared to others and create a benchmarking program among security organizations.  The results will enable these groups to know where they stand as a basis of an on-going peer review process.

Solorzano said the goal of the university, and university police, isn’t to remain at the top of the magazine’s list. Instead, it is to continue to lower the rate of crime, and increase the safety of the campus population.

“We want our students and staff to feel safe,” he said. “In order to do this, we need to continue to look for ways to improve upon our security features. We feel fortunate to have made the list, but that doesn’t mean our job is done.”