This article is dedicated to Dara Detwonga ‘19, who passed this article to me as she went on her senior project. Good luck, seniors!

       Is Wellesley really as safe as we think it is? It’s a question that is often in the back of our minds, but rarely do we actually think about it. After a flasher incident in 2006 on the Dana Hall campus, residents realized that even though we live in an affluent area, the dangers are still there.

Dara and I went online to see how safe Wellesley really is. I first researched the safety of Wellesley College and Babson College, both of which are in Wellesley. Wellesley College had twenty reported safety-related incidents in the year 2017, the latest year that data was available. Babson College had 149 reported safety threats or safety-related incidents the same year. These incidents included mostly disciplinary infractions, including some violent offenses and a very few crimes against women. Wellesley College was slightly below the average number of these reports, while Babson was slightly above, but both colleges seemed relatively safe compared to some other universities.

       Our next step was to research sex offenders in the area. Here is the bad news: there are three sex offenders who live within a three mile radius of the Dana Hall upper school. Two live in Needham, and one lives in Natick. Their charges are somewhat alarming. Two are “level three” sex offenders, which means that authorities predict they may repeat their offense. One is a “level two” offender, which means that he is less likely to repeat his offense and his offense is more minor.

       Here is the good news: there is a way for you to inform yourself of sex offenders in the area, and it’s free of charge! You can visit the sex offender registry website to find potential threats in your area. Seniors going off to college and beyond could use this to be informed of people who could pose potential dangers in the towns they will be living in.

       The link for the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Website can be found at the end of the article. First, scroll down and click on the SEARCH FOR SEX OFFENDERS button. Scroll all the way down to “geographical search” and insert your address, town, zip code and requested radius. After a moment, the webpage will switch to a complete fact file on the sex offenders that live within a one mile, two mile, or three mile radius of where you are. This is how we found the information on the three sex offenders that live in Needham and Natick.

       This website is an extremely useful resource that you can use wherever you are. The search results yield pictures of the offenders, their charges, and their current residence. If we can learn anything from the experience, it’s that no place is perfectly safe. We do not live in a crime-free utopia. What is good about this is that we now know how to avoid necessary threats. We don’t need to be paranoid, just informed and practical.

Sex Offender Registry Board Website: https://www.mass.gov/orgs/sex-offender-registry-board.

Safety Incidents at Wellesley College: https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/wellesley-college/student-life/crime/

Safety Incidents at Babson College: https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/babson-college/student-life/crime/