Spread across a total of three counties, the Bryan-College Station area is home to over 250,000 people. While the B-CS area is not known for having high crime rates, crimes are still committed on a daily basis.
Due to a large portion of the area’s population being college students, crime rates see a seasonal rise and fall as students leave and return between semesters. Lt. Bobby Richardson of the Texas A&M University Police Department said that he attributes the  crime rate changes to those changes in student population. 
“One thing you have to keep in mind about A&M is the fall semester,” Richardson said. “Our population increases, so obviously our crime reporting increases. It’ll dip down in December around Christmas and will pick up in January.”
According to Richardson and Bryan Police Sgt. Ryan Bona, the most common crime that the student population faces is theft. However, sexual assault remains very much a concern. In 2016, there were 59 sexual assaults reported to Bryan PD, “the only category with increased numbers since 2009,” Bona said. 
Sociology graduate student Eileen Huey has been a resident of College Station for over 10 years and described College Station as a safe city to live in. 
“There are so few violent crimes here in College Station that I am not really ever worried about that,” Huey said. “I do think there has been new awareness, especially on college campuses as to the threat of sexual assault.”
The university police department, however, deals mainly with crimes committed by students, the most common crime being theft of valuable items.
“Lots of times, they are going to be crimes of opportunity,” Richardson said. “Where a student goes to study and leaves their laptop or their purse or their backpack laying around and walks off and comes back later.”
According to his past experience, Bona said he has identified college students as the main targets for these type of crimes.
“College students are considered to be a prime target for burglaries and thefts,” Bona said. “Students leave items of value unattended in vehicles, lockers and buildings. Criminals are like fishermen, they go where the fish are.”
The Bryan Police Department encourages citizens to lock vehicles, hide and remove valuables from plain sight, record serial numbers and be cautious when any sort of alcohol is being consumed.
UPD offers various tools and services to students to help the prevention of lost or stolen items, including property engraving and serial number reporting to have items returned.
“The police department offers free property engraving. We can engrave a laptop, we can engrave your iPod, we can engrave your bicycle,” Richardson said. “If we can engrave those things, then when they’re stolen or lost and we recover them, we know who they belong to.”
UPD will also have various engraving stations set up during move-in day on August 20 for all incoming and returning students. Aside from engraving, students may also register bicycles with Transportation Services to ensure stolen bicycles are returned to the owner.
For further information on engraving, serial number recording and other theft protection resources, visit the UPD website at https://upd.tamu.edu.