A Simple Solution

More than two weeks have elapsed since the year's first reported dormitory burglary. On Oct. 3, Matthews Hall residents in at least two separate suites neglected to lock their doors at night. A burglar savvy enough to advance passed the dormitory's strictest form of security against Harvard-unaffiliated intruders--the key card machine--invited himself into the students' rooms, and unfortunately, into their wallets. Last week, a first-year returned to his Thayer dorm room at 4 a.m. and found himself face-to-face with an intruder in his common room. Thankfully, the first-year was a member of the College's heavyweight crew team, and he successfully wrestled his and his roommates' belongings away from the burglar.

But this show of individual bravado didn't seem to deter would-be burglars. On Saturday morning, Matthews Hall was hit again.

We wholeheartedly sympathize with the students whose belongings have been stolen, or whose emotions have been shaken at the thought of strangers invading their dorm rooms. But having said that, we simply cannot endorse some of the solutions that have been suggested in light of the recent burst of theft in the Yard.

Several victims have requested that automatic locks be installed in dormitory doors. One first-year explained that she would rather be locked out of her room than "risk having [her] door open to the world." But if she really fears the world will tramp through her unlocked door, we proffer a simple piece of advice: Be a little bit more compulsive about locking the door when leaving the room.

Another first-year victim accused the University administration of not delivering the security he assumed would come along with college life. Although Harvard certainly isn't the real world yet, it's also not the safety blanket of our parents' household. Delinquents decorate residential houses with hateful graffiti, burglars quickly pedal away on unattended bikes, and several students have also been the victims of assault in this very "utopia" of a college campus.

In fact, we underscore the wise advice Harvard University Police Department Sergeant James L. McCarthy dispensed immediately after the Matthews break-ins: lock your doors. Burglars have not yet taken to jimmying door locks because enough students neglect to secure their belongings by ensuring their doors are firmly, and permanently, shut behind them.

And while the burden of preventing burglaries lies, and should lie, on the students themselves, the University could make one sensible and essential adjustment in Harvard's security system: universal key-card access. Still unknown is how the burglars entered the Thayer and Mathews dormitories in the first place. But had there been universal key-card access, it is possible the thief would have never been swiped into a dormitory building, and granted entrance into the rooms of the unsuspecting, and somewhat nave, first-years.