Kansas University students had a reason to feel a little bit safer last year, at least according to new crime statistics.

KU public safety officials on Friday released crime figures for 2004 that showed a three percent decrease from the 2003 total crime rate.

“The reductions are kind of uniform,” said KU police spokesman Schuyler Bailey. “We didn’t get a huge drop anywhere. It is just a clear, across the board, continued reduction.”

A total of 834 incidents were reported to KU police in 2004, a figure consistent with previous years. The total incident rate has hovered in the 800s since 2001, hitting a low of 807 in 2002. Crime on campus has decreased significantly since 1997, when the department took 1,479 incident reports.

Kathy Rose-Mockry, who works on campus safety issues at KU’s Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center, said KU’s figures suggest Lawrence deals with crime levels similar to other college towns.

“We do not have a larger safety problem than any other campus — it is a problem for all campuses,” she said.

As in previous years, larceny, theft, burglary, and property damage accounted for the majority of incidents in 2004.

While reports in most crime categories decreased, assaults on campus rose from 32 in 2003 to 53 in 2004, an increase which public safety officials attributed to a rise in domestic violence, particularly for one couple. The report noted that a single couple accounted for a quarter of all the domestic violence cases on campus.

Reported rapes on campus increased from one in 2002 and 2003 to four in 2004, though both Bailey and Rose-Mockry said the figure did not necessarily indicate an increase in the incidence of rape. Instead, they said, it might mean that more women are reporting the incident.

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Rose-Mockry added that the statistics could be misleading, because they only accounted for incidents reported on campus.

“A number of students do not live on campus property or are involved in incidents that do not occur specifically on campus property,” she said.

Bailey said the steady decrease in the number of theft reports was likely the result of students keeping closer watch over their personal affects.

Furthermore, he said, safety department efforts to educate KU students about crime early in their stay may be paying off.

“We start talking to our students about personal safety and property safety before they are ever KU students,” Bailey said. “I think people are being more careful with their property.”