It's easy to feel like the Amherst Bubble keeps out not only contact with the outside world but also contact with violence. It's easy to forget that laptops and bicycles are stolen with some regularity here, that fights happen on campus (among students and also between students and outsiders) and, up until last week at least, that sexual assault can and does happen at the College.

Unfortunately, the letters to the editor we printed last week were a stark reminder to the contrary. Crime (sometimes violent) does happen here, and our classmates are sometimes the culprits.

The members of the editorial board of The Student read the Crime Log more carefully than anyone else on campus, and we also cover unusual or particularly egregious crimes that take place here, but many of us still don't lock our own doors. Some of us walk back from the newspaper office alone in the middle of the night.

We don't want to endorse an atmosphere of paranoia and fear on campus, but we want to encourage students, both male and female, to remember that we're not as safe as we think we are.

Please, lock your doors while you're out or while you're asleep. Don't be embarrassed to call Safe Ride if you need to get home late at night. Be aware of strangers wandering around your dorm, but also be aware of too-drunk classmates and any suspicious activity. Don't give your building access code away. And don't look at Campus Police as the enemy bent on breaking up your parties and taking your kegs-they're here to help us.

And one way in which the administration (Campus Police, Health Services, etc.) could better help us would be by informing us more frequently of the more serious criminal acts that take place on campus. The annual crime report is more joked about than anything else, as is the Crime Log. More effective were the fliers posted around campus urging students to keep their eyes open and report suspicious activity after a man wielded a knife at a party.

We need to create an atmosphere where victims of all kinds of crimes feel comfortable reporting them and telling their stories. And in order to do that, more people need to come forward, be it with sexual assaults or stolen cameras. We know that this task is a hard one, and we don't expect everyone to come forward immediately, but reporting crimes is one way to prevent more crime.

We don't think last summer's rape is the first to occur on this campus; it's unfair to everyone involved that one crime has become the face for all crime at Amherst. But we can change this, and at the same time stop crime before it starts. We're a community, and while we don't need a neighborhood watch just yet, we can start by looking out for ourselves and being just a little more careful.