The Cambridge Police Department's annual crime report released in early March revealed that crime rates for the city were the lowest since statistics began to be kept in the 1960s.

In 1996, 4,951 crimes were committed in Cambridge, down 11.9 percent from 5,620 in 1995.

Nevertheless, many Harvard students saw and heard about more violent crimes in and around campus this year.

On Sept. 7, a stranger-on-stranger rape occurred in a Riverside-area home just blocks from Mather House. After stealing some jewelry and a Camcorder, the intruder entered the woman's bedroom where she was asleep with her child, forced her at knifepoint into another room and raped her, said Cambridge Police Department Sergeant Joseph J. McSweeney.

Mather residents were understandably unnerved.

"It's not safe. Rarely do I see a police car near Mather House," said a Mather resident.

Only five days later, a 59-year-old homeless man was hit over the head with a brick by an unknown assailant and left to bleed in the Peabody Terrace visitor's parking lot. Peabody Terrace is an apartment complex located approximately a block away from Mather House.

Megan L. Peimer '97, former co-president of the Radcliffe Union of Students, said the issue of safety was particularly important for women.

She cited the case of a female jogging on Weeks Bridge over the Charles River early this academic year and was raped in broad daylight.

Information on the incident was not released until six weeks after the incident.

"When we heard about the assault, we were outraged," Peimer said.

In October, undergraduates were plagued with a string of violent crimes directly targeting Harvard students.

Half of the incidents occurred in the poorly-lit and sparsely populated area between the Yard and the Quad houses.

Two Cabot House residents were attacked in Cambridge Common at 2 a.m., and a group of undergraduates was threatened at knifepoint on Walker Street just a block from the Quad.

"Lighting on the route from the Yard to the Quad isn't great in a lot of areas," said Elizabeth A. Haynes '98, a longtime campus safety advocate. "There needs to be a blue [security] phone every block."