When Troy Abel, assistant professor for environmental studies, arrived to his office after his 8 a.m. class two weeks ago, something was not right.  He realized his laptop, which he had left on his desk when he went home at 4 p.m. the day before, was gone.

The environmental studies department bought the laptop for Abel when he started teaching at Western three years ago, and he had been saving his work files on the computer ever since.  

“I have backups, but now I have to reconstitute things, which has slowed me down, knocked me off my groove and made me more cantankerous than usual,” Abel said.  “Being an absent minded professor, I wasn’t very systematic about my backup system.”

Abel’s laptop theft is symptomatic of a recent spike in burglaries on campus this quarter.  Since Feb. 22, there have been 20 burglaries, attempted burglaries and thefts involving electronic equipment reported in residence halls and academic buildings,  Randy Stegmeier, chief of University Police said.  Of those, nine have been reports of stolen laptops, including Abel’s.

In comparison, only 11 burglaries were reported during the 2007 calendar year; the 2008 statistics are not yet available to the public, said David Doughty, assistant director of public safety.

“This rise in property burglaries is a little bit of an indication of the climate we are in as far as the economic downturn and everybody struggling financially,” Stegmeier said.  “I think that there are those that, in times like this, turn to stealing from others to try and make up the losses and pressures that they are feeling.” College campuses are target-rich environments for people wanting to make some extra money because of the concentrated population in a relatively small geographic area, Stegmeier said.  College students are not necessarily wealthy, but they do own a lot of electronics that can be sold for needed funds, he said.

“Students have a lot of stuff. They’ve got laptops, cell phones, Blackberries, PlayStations, Xboxes,” Stegmeier said. “All of that stuff can be turned around and either pawned or Craigslisted and turned into cash fairly easily.”

In response to the recent increase in burglaries on campus, Stegmeier sent out a campus-wide e-mail detailing some important crime prevention tips.  Of the tips, Stegmeier reiterated keeping doors locked at all times, even when just leaving for a few minutes, is key. He also said that students and faculty need to make sure to write down the make, model and serial number of all expensive electronics.  

By keeping the make, model and serial number in a safe place, the police are able to enter the information into the state and national database, which they can then compare with lists of purchases Washington state pawnshops are required to submit to the police, Stegmeier said.

At Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Public Safety and Police Services requires all residence halls to offer a personal safety program within the first six weeks of the school year. For the program, a campus police officer goes to each hall to instruct students on how to keep their personal property safe, said Lieutenant Tim Stowe from Central’s Public Safety and Police Services.  

While visiting the residence halls, the police officers give each student an inventory sheet to list the make, model and serial number of all their expensive items, Stowe said.

According to its online report, Central had 23 burglaries in 2007, but only two laptops have been reported stolen this year, Stowe said.

Stegmeier said most of the thefts and burglaries on college campuses are referred to as cold cases, which means someone calls to report something stolen, but he or she does not know when it actually happened.  For cold cases, where there is no chance of any evidence being collected, the initial report may even be taken over the phone, he said.  

However, if the theft or burglary is noticed relatively quickly or if someone suspicious was seen in the area, an officer is dispatched right away to see if a suspect can be detained, Stegmeier said.

Of the 20 burglaries, attempted burglaries and thefts that have happened at Western since Feb. 22, no arrests have occurred, Stegmeier said.

Ron Helms, an associate professor in the sociology department who focuses on criminal justice, said it is not uncommon for crimes against property to not end with an arrest.  From a study he found online from University at Albany in New York, Helms said only 12.6 percent of burglaries in the U.S. end with someone being arrested.

Helms said he is not sure he agrees with Stegmeier’s opinion that the rise in burglaries is due to the current economic downturn. He said people are opportunistic, so when they see a door open, why not go in and grab a laptop?

“People on campus are not destitute; by and large they are not impoverished,” Helms said.  “So it is probably not a need-based thing; it is probably a greed-based thing.”

Whether it is because of economic times or because people just want more electronics, Helms said he is not going to speculate on causation right now because not enough information is available to know what exactly is going on.

“I’m not convinced that [Western’s increase in burglaries] is a substantial increase,” Helms said. “It might be an aberration that goes away next year.  I’ll have to wait and see what the trend is.”     

Saved on Abel’s laptop were class rosters for every class he has taught during the three years he has been at Western.  Included on those rosters were student’s names, Western ID numbers and grades the students received in each class.

Because of this compromised information, Abel had to meet with the Data Incident Response Team, lead by John Lawson, vice provost for information technology and chief information officer.  

Lawson formed the team two years ago to respond to any incident where data may have been compromised, such as hacking or theft.  The team has some standing members, including Western’s general council, internal auditor, director of administrative computing, public information officer, the chief of police and Lawson as the chief information officer.

When information has been compromised, the team meets with whoever is affected to figure out what information was taken. It does not matter whether the information was on a computer or in a file, the team has to meet to discuss the information and what legal requirements are needed, Lawson said.

In the case of Abel’s laptop, because student information was on the computer, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act requires that all students who were listed on the rosters be notified of the compromise, Lawson said. Students are currently being notified, Abel said.

The team also brainstorms ways to try and keep information safe.  One member suggested to Abel that he encrypt all files on his laptop that include student information, so the file is required to ask for a password before opening, Abel said.

“That was never something I thought of,” he said. “And it is not something we are not advised to do, so that information needs to be passed along to other faculty.”

Lawson said the information technology department is currently working on spreading the idea to encrypt confidential files throughout campus.  Student and department laptops are not the only laptops that have been stolen on campus, although they do make up the majority.  

A couple weeks ago, Jamie Harrington, assistant director of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (SMATE), discovered one of the seven wireless laptops available for checkout at the Learning Resource Center in SMATE was missing.  Because the laptop was purchased through the Student Technology Fee, it will not be replaced, Harrington said.

Harrington said the SMATE program was formed under the premises of portability and the ability to reconfigure in a short period of time.  Because of that need, the program uses mostly laptops and has close to 70 of them, Harrington said.  As a precaution, new laptop locks have been ordered and are expected to arrive soon, he said.

The make, model and serial number for both Harrington’s and Abel’s laptops were given to the police, which means if the laptops were pawned, they could turn up, Stegmeier said.

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