03/27/16 Department of Education - Campus Crime README Record Count for 2014 (campuses reporting): 11,593 This is the Clery Act Campus Crime data from the U.S. Department of Education. The statistics represent alleged criminal offenses reported to campus police or security and local law enforcement. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, codified at 20 U.S.C. 1092 (f) as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965, is a federal law that requires colleges and universities to disclose certain timely and annual information about campus crime and security policies. All public and private institutions of postsecondary education participating in federal student aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 are subject to it. Schools that fail to provide the required information or provide inaccurate information face fines up to $27,500 per violation. In 1990, President George Bush signed the original bill, the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, into law. In 1998, it was renamed in memory of Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Ann Clery, who was raped and murdered while asleep in her dorm room in 1986. On October 1 of each year, schools are required to publish and distribute an annual campus security report to all current students and employees with crime statistics for the three most recent calendar years. The statistical information contained in each report are based on the calendar year (Jan. 1 – Dec. 31) in which the crime was reported to campus officials. Schools were allowed to revise their reported statistics for a year after they are first submitted. Because of this, as time rolled on, the Department of Education initially released two versions of each year’s statistics - an initial report and a final report. In 2014, a new category was added in accordance with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which requires that colleges and universities provide data regarding incidents of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. In addition, the VAWA amendments added gender identity and national origin to the categories of bias institutions must reflect within their hate crime statistics. (see more here: http://clerycenter.org/article/vawa-amendments-clery) Also new to 2014 is a count of "unfounded" crimes. An unfounded crime is "a reported crime that upon investigation by law enforcement authorities is found to be false or baseless. Only sworn or commissioned law enforcement personnel may unfound a crime. Crime reports can be properly determined to be false only if the evidence from a complete and thorough investigation establishes that the crime reported was not, in fact, completed or attempted in any manner." Tables are set up based on the types of offenses, and the locations where they occurred. In terms of location, the data is broken down in the following ways: I. On-Campus: events that occurred at the school’s buildings or property. This is defined by the Department of Education as “Any building or property owned or controlled by an institution within the same reasonably contiguous geographic area and used by the institution in direct support of, or in a manner related to, the institution's educational purposes, including residence halls; and (2) Any building or property that is within or reasonably contiguous to the area identified in paragraph (1) of this definition, that is owned by the institution but controlled by another person, is frequently used by students, and supports institutional purposes (such as a food or other retail vendor). A school may use a map to visually illustrate the areas included in the definition of its campus.” II. Residence Halls: This data is a subset of the on-campus data, and includes events that occurred at the school’s residential facilities- dorms, apartments, etc. Please note that while most people think of these arrangements as existing only in conjunction with 4-year colleges and universities, it has become less uncommon over the years for these services to also be provided by some 2-year schools and technical schools. III. Public Property: events that occurred on public property that is contiguous with the school’s campus. This is defined as “All public property, including thoroughfares, streets, sidewalks, and parking facilities, that is within the campus, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus.” IV. Non-Campus: events that occurred at a non-campus building or property. This is defined by the as “Any building or property owned or controlled by a student organization that is officially recognized by the institution; or (2) Any building or property owned or controlled by an institution that is used in direct support of, or in relation to, the institution's educational purposes, is frequently used by students, and is not within the same reasonably contiguous geographic area of the institution. A school may use a map to visually illustrate the areas included in the definition of its campus.” It should be noted that the Department of Education also provides data for a fifth category of location, one that they simply call Reported. This catch-all category includes data reported by police that do not permit placement by the required geography of on-campus, residential, non-campus and public property. The problem, according to the Department of Education’s David Bergeron, is that this “location” is very poorly defined. If the school has a good relationship with it, and its budget permits, the local law enforcement authority might provide numbers that are well-targeted to the school’s needs. If the relationship isn’t so good, or budgets are tight, the school may have to be satisfied with numbers for the entire city. Because of this, Bergeron considers this Reported category to be junk, and doesn’t use it. The data library concurs with this judgment, and therefore we no longer report this data. NOTE FOR 2009-2014 DATA: The tables for these years include all institutions, even if they did not report crimes for the locations listed. In this case, all offense fields for these institutions will be null. In the 2008 and older data, the DOE eliminated from the tables any institutions that did not report crimes under certain locations. Thus, record counts might vary from location to location in the 2001-2008 data. In terms of the type of offense, the data is also broken down into four categories. I. Crime- which is reported in the following eleven major categories: 1) Murder and Non-negligent manslaughter 2) Negligent manslaughter 3) Rape 4) Fondling 5) Incest 6) Statutory Rape 7) Robbery 8) Aggravated Assault 9) Burglary 10) Motor Vehicle Theft 11) Arson II. Hate Crimes- which includes all of the above-listed categories, plus simple assault. These are defined as “A crime against a person or property motivated by bias toward race, religion, ethnicity/national origin, disability, or sexual orientation.” Unfortunately, up until the 2003 Final tables, the data in this category is very skimpy. No explanation has been provided for this. NOTE: In the recent hate crime tables, the DOE removed "negligent manslaughter". Previously, they had released no data under this category; here is their reasoning: "Negligent manslaughter will be blank in the Hate Crimes section (because a hate crime has to be willful and Negligent Manslaughter is, by definition, not willful). ... It will be mostly zeros since Negligent Manslaughter is very rare." III. Arrests- the following three categories are reported, in situations where they lead to an arrest: 1) Liquor Law Violations 2) Drug Law Violations 3) Illegal Weapons Possessions IV. Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act- VAWA’s Campus Sexual Violence Act (“SaVE Act”) provision adds domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking to the categories that, if the incident was reported to a campus security authority or local police agency, must be reported under Clery. Starting with 2014 data, “national origin” and “gender identity” have been added to the hate crime categories. CAVEAT: These categories encompass multiple violent offenses, like rape, assault, murder, etc. For example, a murder committed by a individual’s spouse would be counted as 1 murder and 1 domestic violence incident. V. Discipline- sometimes, events in the above three categories are referred for disciplinary action instead of an arrest, in which case they are counted here. If both an arrest and referral are made, only the arrest is counted. For 2010 and forward, each year's dataset consists of eight tables (see the layouts.xls file for information on fields in each table): ONCAMPUS -- arrests, crimes and disclipline for on-campus ONCAMPUSHATE -- hate crimes for on-campus NONCAMPUS -- arrests, crimes and discipline for non-campus NONCAMPUSHATE -- hate crimes for non-campus RESIDENCHALL -- arrests, crimes and discipline* for residence halls RESIDENCHALLHATE -- hate crimes for residence halls PUBLICPROPERTY -- arrests, crimes and discipline for public property PUBLICPROPERTYHATE -- hate crimes for public property UNFOUNDED (added in 2014) -- a count of unfounded crimes (the hate crimes records were kept separate due to size: there are 104 fields in each hate crimes table) Before 2007, the Department of Education released initial and final tables for each year, so you will see both in the data. Before the year 2000, Clery Act statistics were never centrally collected, although some data collected for 2000 has been made available. The 2000 tables, all for on-campus crime, are located in a separate folder (2000), and have a different structure. For 2001 to 2009, each year’s dataset consists of fifteen to sixteen tables. Here’s how they’re organized: Arrests: ONCAMAR (on campus) RESHALAR (residence hall) NONCAMAR (non campus) PUBPROAR (public property) Crimes: ONCAMCR RESHALCR NONCAMCR PUBPROCR Discipline: ONCAMDI RESHALDI* NONCAMDI PUBPRODI Hate Crimes: ONCAMHA RESHALHA NONCAMHA PUBPROHA * For years 2001 to 2007, there is no residence hall discipline table. The Department of Education had an issue collecting the data, and did not redesign the reporting process to add it until 2008. Regardless of the table they land in, the statistics represent reported offenses, and do not necessarily reflect prosecutions or convictions for crime. Because some statistics are provided by non-police authorities, the data are not directly comparable to data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting system, which only collects statistics from police authorities. However, the UCR program is a voluntary program where law enforcement agencies submit monthly reports. Reporting under the Clery Act is mandatory. Some reporting categories are different between the UCR and campus crime statistics. Simple theft is not included and the definition of sexual assault is broader under the Clery Act. Where guidance from the UCR program does not conflict with Clery Act reporting requirements, schools are expected to follow the classifying and scoring methods outlined in the UCR Handbook. Other information included with the data: law.pdf — Clery Act text as amended through 2000 regulations.pdf — current Clery Act regulations, effective July 1, 2003 Other documents available: If a citizen believes an institution is violating these reporting obligations, he or she can file a complaint with the Department of Education’s regional office that has jurisdiction in the state where the school allegedly breaking the law is located. If the Department of Education suspects that institutions of higher education are in violation of the Clery Act, it will review the institution’s campus security program. Once the department decides whether the school violated the law, it will release a report, called a “Final Program Review Determination Letter (FPRDL).” Please see the Record Layout, which includes definitions for the reportable offenses, as well as other key terms. From the IRE Resource Center: “UC keeps sex crimes in shadows” (story #17749), Sacramento Bee, September 24-25, 2000. A five-month Bee investigation finds that reports of rapes and sexual assaults at University of California campuses are seldom made public each year despite the Clery Act. The Bee found several UC campuses that violated the campus crime reporting law, creating a misleading portrayal of safety in the annual crime reports given to students and parents. While the nine UC campuses reported 60 forcible sex offenses in 1998, including rapes, the Bee discovered more than three times as many. “Covering higher education” (tipsheet #932), Boston 1999. This tipsheet provides pointers on access to crime and salary information in the higher education system. It provides some guidelines on how to evaluate the information once you have it. From the IRE Journal: “Campus rapes: Underreporting by schools boasting safety records,” July/August 2001, p. 16-17. Read how the Sacramento Bee reporters found that University of California campuses were underreporting incidents of rape and sexual assault.