The University of Limerick has launched a new campaign to improve the personal safety of students and to prevent crimes against them and their property.
It includes the launch of the Campus Watch booklet which offers advice on personal safety, protecting their property, their accommodation, their bicycles and cars, as well as advice on sexual and cyber crime and anti-social activity.
The booklet is written in five languages, English, Irish, Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish to make it as accessible as possible. The university has almost 12,000 students, including 2,000 international students.
The booklet advises that college and university campuses are vast busy places with lots of people, many with unfamiliar faces, going about their business.
It's where criminals can easily blend in, where it's not unusual to see people carrying backpacks and other items without suspicion.
The campus watch programme designed in collaboration with the Gardaí and the UL Student Life group is similar to local community or neighbourhood watch programmes advising students to be safety and crime aware and to report suspicious activity.
It also has a chapter on sexual crime and what is and is not 'consent'.
The booklet also points out that there are now 227 ethnic liaison officers in An Garda Síochána available to diverse and minority communities to reassure them of the services and protection available to them.
