College and University Security More extensive campus crime reporting mandated

Apr 1, 1999 12:00 PM, GEORGE PARTINGTON

College and university security personnel have more challenges than keeping a campus community safe. Due to the Campus Security Act, they also must keep accurate crime statistics and make them available to the public.

It's important because prospective students and their parents want to make informed decisions on which schools to attend based on safety, in addition to other criteria.

Recent amendments to Section 485(f) of the act call for statistics on additional categories of crime and areas of campus.

Schools that fail to meet reporting requirements face a $25,000 penalty. Tony Kleibecker, police captain at Michigan State University in East Lansing, says the changes present a logistics challenge because pertinent information is kept by various campus agencies. "We have the pieces across different units, but now we are going to have to pull them together, centralize the reporting to provide a document or a series of documents that can be dispensed when people want them," he says.

Amendments to Section 485(f) of the act include: - Schools must now report statistics on manslaughter and arson. - Campus disciplinary referrals for alcohol, drug and weapons violations must be disclosed. - The reporting of "hate crimes" has been expanded; crimes are to be reported by "category of prejudice." - Schools must report alerts for crimes identified in the act. - Schools are required to submit the information to the Department of Education for inclusion in an annual report. - Disclosures are required to be made automatically to students and employees - and upon request to prospective students and employees. - The definition of campus has been expanded to require the disclosure of crime statistics for four areas: (1) on campus, (2) student residential facilities on campus, (3) off campus (fraternity and sorority houses and remote class sites), and (4) public property, which is defined as streets, sidewalks, public parking garages and other areas which are in the immediate, geographic, contiguous area of the campus and are used by students. Included in the fourth category are campus food courts operated by contractors.

The act still does not require reports on theft, the most common college campus crime. "Many schools and campus police administrators wanted it, but there are certain people in the Senate who felt, for whatever reason, that it was not appropriate," says S. Daniel Carter, Security On Campus vice president.

Disclosure of campus crime statistics was promoted by Security On Campus Inc., a national, non-profit organization geared to the prevention of college and university campus violence and other crimes. The organization was founded in 1987 by Howard and Connie Clery after their daughter, Jeanne, was brutally raped, beaten and murdered by another student that she didn't know in her dormitory room at Lehigh University in the early morning hours of April 5, 1986.

Section 485(f) is named the Jeanne Clery Act in her honor. For more information, contact Security On Campus at 610-768-9330.

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