Is it Safe? For the Umpteenth Time....

This series, a journal of my nightly non-adventures plying the reputedly, possibly, erroneously, tough streets of South Los Angeles, has become my most requested, contested, misunderstood, corroborated entry.

For starters, we live in a world where bad shit happens to good people. In the city of Los Angeles bad shit happens to good people too. Some of it happens within the neighborhoods in which I amble, mostly between Wilshire and Vernon, La Brea and Figueroa (and increasingly a bit further East).

But my contention is, has been, continues to be, more bad shit is presumed to occur within these boundaries than actually occurs. West Adams and environs were never the city's toughest neighborhoods, others can/could claim that distinction, and to the extent they were ever tough--they've gotten less so.

Still, I've hesitated to post additional entries. In part because one wrote about being attacked at USC, an anecdote different from those vagrant and destitute of valuable details. I began to reconsider my position. Perhaps, accompanied by canine condottiere, and other stern enthusiasts, I'd become stupidly ferocious, an impious adventurer, uncharacteristically calmed by intervals of unaccountable streetside stillness, oblivious to the possible ladrones and matreros, the knots of men at bus stops and near bars.

Then again, I looked at the numbers, those having to do with crime and USC. Since 1992 all colleges under the Jeanine Cleary Act have been required by federal law to compile and distribute annual statistics about crime on their campuses and remote facilities (including frat houses, residence halls, etc).

Universities: sanctuaries far removed from the threat of crime? Hardly. But we know this, and VA Tech was just the latest, grimmest reminder. So while USC tabulated a greater number of offenses than some other California colleges, it also exhibited below average rates of on-campus auto theft and robbery. Rapes occurred nearly everywhere, even at sacred cow institutions like Cal Berkeley and UCLA. When I compared USC to other "inner city" schools like Marquette or Columbia, Penn or George Washington, the numbers seemed in step, better in some cases, with schools recording great variations year to year. (UCLA, for example, reported fifteen rapes one year, seven the next.)

Perhaps I'm not stupidly ferocious, but of mean appearance, a leonine faced, early mid-lifer, passably athletic, bound for bald. Maybe the streets require some seasoning and a little spider sense. Maybe my vocation motivates my borough boosterism. Maybe it just ain't that bad out there, or at least only as bad--or as good--as everywhere else.