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Day: 24 February 2014

Manchester ranked worst for student crime

Shut your windows and lock your doors – Manchester has been ranked as having the highest numbers of robberies, burglaries, and violent crime outside London.

According to statistics published by the Complete University Guide Manchester has the highest levels of student-relevant crime in a city with two or more universities.

In an investigation into the levels of crime for individual institutions, The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University were among those ranked as having the highest number of reported crimes within three miles of the main campus.

The guide states that Manchester has the highest rates of robberies and burglaries, while Nottingham has the highest rates of violent crime.

The guide’s crime map shows that Fallowfield, the most popular accommodation area with students, has one of the highest crime rates outside the city centre. There were 671 reported crimes in Fallowfield and the surrounding areas last December alone, according to figures obtained from police.uk.

The Complete University Guide, which uses official police data to calculate its report, claims to provide “the clearest picture possible” of crime rates in cities outside London.

It uses figures for what it believes to be the three crimes most relevant to students; robberies; burglaries; and violent crimes, including sexual offences, given that data for crimes affecting only students is not available.

Bernard Kingston, founder of the Complete University Guide, said, “While these crimes are the three most commonly perpetrated against students, the figures relate to all victims, not just students. And they relate to the areas surrounding universities, not solely to university premises.

While universities, especially those in high crime areas, do much to advise students on precautions, many students, particularly those from overseas attracted by formidable academic reputations, are often not aware of the risks in the areas around their chosen institutions.”

The guide estimates that around one-third of students will become victims of crime while at university, with 20 per cent of robberies occurring within six weeks after the start of the academic year.

Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Manchester took 21st and 22nd place respectively in a table to find the most reported crimes, with MMU having 2.55 reported robberies, burglaries and violent crimes per thousand residents, closely followed by Manchester with 2.51.

The top nineteen places were all taken by universities in London, with King’s College having the highest correlation between crime and population, at 3.59 crimes per thousand.

Mr Kingston said that crime figures should be taken into consideration when deciding where to study, “While the quality of tuition and the prospects for employment after graduation are key elements in choosing a university course, it is important not to overlook other aspects of the environment in which the student will be living for three or more years.

“Regrettably, our university cities are not immune from the pressures on society and crime is a constant presence.”

Bristol, Nottingham and Birmingham joined Manchester among cities with the highest crime levels, while York, Canterbury and Bath were found to have the lowest. Among individual institutions, only Hull University had a higher incidence of crime than Manchester and MMU, with Aberystwyth, Durham, and Winchester having the fewest reported crimes.

Withholding graduation due to library fines “breach of consumer law”

Universities have been warned by the Office of Fair Trading that withholding students from graduation due to unpaid library, parking or damage fines is “unfair” and may be a breach of consumer law.

The practice of academic sanctions for non-academic debt has also been dismissed as “almost laughable” by Colum McGuire, NUS vice president for welfare.

The University of Manchester, however, had still not made a decision about amending their rules as The Mancunion went to print.

Currently, the rules state that “the assessment result for any student may be withheld if he or she, on completion of his or her programme of study, fails to return all items borrowed from the Library, or fails to pay all outstanding charges or fines”.

The library receives over £200,000 every year in income from fines, and figures released in 2012 by The Guardian named Manchester as second only to Leeds University in money taken in from fines – taking almost £1.3 million from library fines over the course of five academic years.

A spokesperson for the University said: “The University is reviewing the OFT Report and will decide in due course how we should respond to its recommendations.”

The investigation of this practice by the OFT came as a result of compaints from the National Union of Students.

A July investigation then revealed that about 75% of Universities withhold graduation due to unpaid fines in this way.

Arrears for accommodation or childcare services are also mentioned in the report as non-academic debt it is “unfair” for universities to penalise in this way.

The OFT is now ‘recommending that universities employing these terms and conditions should review their rules and make any necessary amendments’.

Colum McGuire, NUS vice president for welfare, said: “I’m delighted to see that the OFT has responded to our complaints and confirmed that this practice is incredibly unfair, which is what NUS has been saying all along.

“Students who owe money for accommodation, overdue library books or other non-academic debt should certainly pay off the money they owe, but this sanction was disproportionate, and actually made it more difficult for students to repay by restricting access to student support or making it more difficult to secure employment in an already challenging job market.”

University spends £20,000 to build a pub

London South Bank University has spent £20,000 on installing a pub in a room on campus.

Run by the psychology department, the bar is an experiment to research how and why people drink, and the effects of alcohol on behaviour.

Dr Tony Moss, head of the Psychology Department at South Bank and behind the experiment, said: “What we are trying to do is simulate, with a greater deal of control, the environment in which people find themselves drinking.

“This is somewhere in between being able to do research in the real world bar – where we have very little control over what is going on – and in a lab cubicle, which is nothing like the way people are drinking in the real world”.

Visitors to the pub are served by psychology students, and their behaviour is recorded by hidden cameras and microphones.

Part of the experiment will involve monitoring how much attention customers pay to alcohol awareness posters while they are drinking.

To make participants in the experiments believe they are a real pub, the room has been made as authentic as possible. The lighting and pre-recorded background noise is carefully controlled, and the glasses are even rubbed with ethanol to recreate the right smell.

Unlike a traditional pub, all the drinks are free. However, there is also no guarantee whether a customer will be given a real alcoholic drink or a placebo replacement.

Dr Moss said: “A lot of the work we are doing involves giving people non-alcoholic drinks, but leading them to believe they contain alcohol.

“A lot of the early work we have been doing isn’t so much interested in the effects of alcohol once people are intoxicated but trying to understand factors that motivate people to drink in certain ways”.

Government “unrealistic” about student loan repayments

The cost of student loans never to be paid back may have been seriously underestimated by the government.

A new report from the Public Accounts Committee has strongly criticised the government and Student Loans Company’s handling of student debt.

Current figures from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills calculate the present unrecoverable debt at 35 to 40 per cent, approximately £18 billion.

With the rise in tuition fees to £9,000 a year, it is estimated that by 2042 the unrecoverable debt will be between £70 billion and £80 billion.

However, the Public Accounts Committee have argued that the government consistently underestimates the amount to be paid back from student loans by around 8%, and so the size of the unrecoverable debt may be even larger than government figures suggest.

According to the report, ‘the over-forecast repayments may be due to optimistic assumptions… about future graduate earnings and earnings growth.

‘The forecasts assume, for example, that rates of wage growth seen in the last three decades will continue, despite recent evidence on gradate pay suggesting this may be unrealistic’.

The report also raised concerns over the selling of the student loan book to private companies.

Last November, the government sold £890 million worth of loans to a debt management consortium for just £160 million.

And according to the report, the Department is planning to sell more of the income-contingent loan book to fund lifting the cap on the number of students admitted to universities.

The report says: ‘The Department told us if the sale did not pass the value for money test it would not go ahead.

‘However, the Department has some way to go before it is in a position to make a convincing value for money case’.

It added: ‘The Department needs a reliable and accurate forecasting model so that it can make a sufficiently robust estimate of the loan value in the first place, which it has not yet been able to do with any confidence’.

The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts said: “the reality is that the Department lacks a robust model to estimate the value of the loans properly.

“The Department must demonstrate that it has a firm grasp upon the real value of the student loan book and the long-term cost to the taxpayer of any early sale”.

The report also reveals that the Student Loans Company has agreed to recommendations that it scrap its premium-rate telephone numbers by April this year.

At the moment, it costs 41 pence per minute to contact the company. While the majority of the profit goes to the line provider, the Student Loan Company earn £78,000 a year from phone calls.

Margaret Hodge said: “Borrowers are still receiving a substandard service.

“They still have to use premium-rate phone lines to contact the Student Loans Company, online services are inadequate, and the IT is no longer fit for purpose”.

The Student Loans Company was also condemned for not doing more to collect loans from those who move overseas after graduation.

In March 2013, the Student Loans Company had no information on 368,000 graduates who were not repaying any of their loans, including not knowing their whereabouts.

The report says: ‘the Department and the Student Loans Company has done little to investigate this group of borrowers.

‘Over three quarters of overdue repayments from borrowers living overseas have been overdue for more than a year’.

Adding to this, Margaret Hodge said that the Student Loans Company “knows very little about British graduates who live abroad or about graduates from the EU who have since left the country.

“Will they ever pay back their loans? The Student Loans Company simply doesn’t know”.

University alumni host debate on drugs and alcohol

Local experts and University of Manchester alumni debated whether alcohol is a “greater menace than drugs”, last week.

Arguing for the motion was Alan Higgins, director of public health for Greater Manchester.

William Lees-Jones, chief executive, JW Lees – a chain of 35 pubs across the north west, argued against the motion.

Lady Rhona Bradley, chief executive of ADS, a Manchester based charity that offers drugs and alcohol treatment, chaired the debate.

In his opening speech, Higgins cited a wide range of studies and statistics which illustrated the harm of drinking on society and health.

“Alcohol related incidents and illness cost Greater Manchester alone £1.2bn a year,” he said. “In 2009 there were over 69,000 incidents of domestic abuse. Alcohol was involved in ¼.”

He also added that, “half of Greater Manchester residents avoid the town centre at night because of drunks.”

Higgins went on to use David Nutt’s much discussed study in the Lancet, which concluded that alcohol is the most lethal out of all substances. It scored 4th in harm to users and top in harm to society.

In 2002 – 2004 alone, alcohol was responsible for the deaths of 25,000 people, compared with heroin being responsible for 4,976, and MDMA causing 227 in a longer time frame. Booze causes a problem, which in Higgins’ words is “industrial” in scale.

Lees Jones responded that, on average, adults in the UK consume 7.4 litres of alcohol – which is the same as Denmark. He added that “Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world. The abuse of alcohol is not a new problem, but drinking responsibly is good for society.

“Perhaps if drugs were regulated as much as alcohol they wouldn’t be as harmful”.

He continued further, “Obesity kills 6 times as many people in the UK as alcohol. Perhaps we should be debating whether food is greater menace than drugs, but that would be absurd”.

“The UK pub industry contributes £22 billion a year to the UK economy”, and booze is a “regulated industry. So you know what you’re getting, and by de facto anything illicit is more dangerous”.

“I won’t embarrass anyone by actually asking who has done cocaine in the last week, but the chances are the number is nowhere near as many as those who have had a drink”.

When asked by The Mancunion whether or not they would favour the legalisation, if not the total decriminalisation of drugs, the panellists were divided.

“I’m afraid none of us can give a straight answer to your question”, said Higgins.

He added that, “at no point would I say abolish alcohol, neither can I quite accept making everything legal”.

Lady Bradly responded by suggesting that a mix of legalisation and decriminalisation would not work. Having worked with many members of the criminal justice system, it would have to be “all or nothing”, and “the money saved would have to be poured into treatment”.

The final result of the vote was a 23 – 25 split against the motion that alcohol is a greater menace than drugs.

Discuss Manchester, who hosted the debate, is a ‘debating organisation’ founded by local executives Martin Carr, Michael Taylor, and Mike Emmerich. In the words of Taylor, it aims to “breathe intellectual life into our great city”.

Both Taylor and Emmerich are alumni of the University of Manchester.

Taylor read Sociology from 1985 – 1988, and served on The Mancunion. He went on to become an award winning journalist.

Emmerich is a former policy advisor to number ten, and was also Director of the Institute for Political & Economic Governance and associate dean of the faculty of humanities at the University of Manchester, from 2002 – 2006.

The debate was held at the Albert Square Chop House, a pub and function room off Albert Square.

Strikes set to affect exam results

The University and College Union has announced that it will not mark students’ examinations if universities do not offer a better pay increase.

The strike  is set to commence on the 28th of April if universities do not concede to raise pay of staff within the next two months.  The strikes will affect release of examination results and possibly cause delays  in graduation ceremonies.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “A marking boycott is the ultimate sanction, but an avoidable one if the employers would negotiate with us over pay.”

She added: “No member I have spoken to wishes to see this dispute escalate, but in the continued absence of meaningful negotiations from the employers, we are left with no alternative.”

This is the latest move in a series of six strikes that started in October last year.  The Union announced that the strike could still be avoided if universities were willing to engage in negotiations.

Staff have been offered a 1% raise in response to their demands, but are pressing for a higher figure.  Vice chancellors have received a pay-rise of 5.1% within the last year, with   average salaries numbering £235,000.

Ms Hunt remarked: “The strong support for our action so far demonstrates how angry staff are at the hypocrisy over pay in our universities. The employers cannot plead poverty when it comes to staff pay and then award enormous rises to a handful at the top.”

 

Liverpool students hospitalised after taking ‘”Geebs”

Five students from Liverpool University have been admitted to hospital in the space of a week, after taking a chemical used in the cleaning of car alloys.

According to the BBC, police were called to Liverpool University halls Bowden Court, at around 7:30 am on Sunday 16th February. Two students aged 20 and 22, and also a 16 year old girl, were immediately rushed to hospital.

The three were all eventually released after successful treatment.

A day later, police were called to student accommodation at Hatton Garden in Liverpool where they found three more students, two aged 20 and one aged 19, who also had to be rushed to hospital. All three were later discharged.

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of supplying a class C drug.

Detective Superintendent Chris Green, of Merseyside Police, said that all six individuals “had taken a product called Geebs, which is actually a chemical used to clean alloy wheels and is used as a legal high.”

“This substance is a chemical used to clean car wheels and even in small doses can kill.

“We will be working with universities in the city in the coming days to warn students about the dangers that drugs and chemicals can have when taken, particularly if mixed with alcohol, or other substances.”

Gamma-butyrolactone, otherwise known as Geebs, has previously been dubbed a ‘coma in a bottle’.

‘Geebs’ is legal when used in industry. But illegal if a person intends to consume. Possession can carry a sentence of up to two years, while supply can lead to a maximum of 14 years in prison.

According to FRANK, the drug can produce “feelings of euphoria, reduced inhibitions and drowsiness. The effects start after about 10 minutes to an hour and can last for up to seven hours or so”. But users can also experience “unconsciousness, coma and death”.

The substance first found itself in the spotlight back in 2009, when a coroner ruled that medical student Hester Stewart died after mixing Geebs with alcohol. The drug has also been linked to a number of sexual assault cases.