Many students have been complaining that the frequency of crime alert e-mails has caused them to disregard or delete them. Yet, the e-mails serve as an essential – and, literally, the only – means the University of Minnesota Police Department has to communicate crime occurrences to the University community. We commend the UMPD for keeping up with timely crime alerts despite some dissent from students who are worried about unclogging their inboxes.

The crime alerts do come often, but seven e-mails over the semester surely does not cramp e-mail inboxes.

Without these alerts, most students would be oblivious to the prevalence, and seriousness, of crime on campus. We don’t hear about nearly any attempted robberies or assaults on or around campus in local news outlets besides the Daily’s crime news beat. The chance of students not catching the story is too large to be sure that students would be aware of what crime incidents have happened recently near them. And, yes, this information is important.

While some argue that the crime alerts don’t change their day-to-day routines, because crime is something that you can’t expect or avoid, we doubt this is the case. The prevalence of the alert e-mails have without a doubt upped many students’ concern about walking alone at night, and it is likely that many are increasingly aware of their surroundings if they are. Maybe the change comes in taking a cab to your door instead of a bus that drops you four blocks away from your home at night.

It is disturbing that students complaining about too many crime alerts have made local TV news when the actual incidents usually do not.

Students must not allow themselves to live oblivious to the world around them. That’s the easiest way to become a perfect victim to a crime you never even saw coming.