Campus crime and safety report released
Students and faculty were recently emailed a link to the annual campus security and fire safety report. According to Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police, a more inclusive set of statistics can be found elsewhere.
The report, called the USU Crime Awareness and Campus Security and Fire Safety Report, was put together by Milne. He said the report, which is federally mandated, can be a good indicator of how safe a given college community is, but it is not all inclusive.
He said the report details specific information and doesn’t show the full picture of campus crime.
“You look at it and you say ‘Oh, there were only 11 burglaries at Utah State University,'” Milne said. “But what you don’t know from that is all the other thefts that we had.”
He also said the report has categories for crimes such as burglary and arson, but it doesn’t include crimes like theft or driving under the influence of alcohol.
“They only want burglaries, they don’t ask for thefts,” Milne said. “We reported 11 burglaries, what you don’t see in the report is the bike thefts, the auto burglaries, the frauds — stuff like that.”
USU Police Department releases another, more inclusive annual report on its website, Milne said, that shows all thefts and day-to-day police business.
There were 49 alcohol-related arrests in 2010, Milne said, citing the online report, while the hard copy — also referred to as the Clery Report, named after the federal act that mandates its annual tabulation — only lists 23 alcohol-related arrests.
Milne said the discrepancy between the reports occurs because the Clery Report doesn’t include over-21 arrests of individuals who were drinking on campus.
However, the Clery Report contains some information not listed in the department’s annual report, he said.
“The Clery Report outlines those policies and procedures that we don’t necessarily put in our report, because our report just deals with crimes,” Milne said. “Those policies and procedures can either be found online through university policies and procedures, or click on the link — on our website — to the Clery Report.”
One example of a policy only contained in the hard copy is USU’s official drug and alcohol policy. It also contains procedures on what to do if you are sexually assaulted and how to diffuse workplace violence.
Among statistics contained in the Clery Report not found online are crime statistics for USU’s regional campuses. Milne said in previous years all the regional campus data were grouped together to make one universal statistic. He said this year the report lists statistics respective to each of the 23 individual campuses.
Milne said both reports are a good recourse for students and parents who are deciding which college they or their related student should attend.
According to Jenn Twiss, executive director for Enrollment Services, a link to the report can be found on USU parental website.
“We publish it as a link on our parents website,” Twiss said. “When parents come to SOAR (new student orientation) and attend with their new freshmen, the police come and make a presentation and make the parents aware of it again.”
Twiss said parents are often concerned with safety when considering which college their child should attend. When parents compare information from USU to other universities they see USU as a safe community, she added.
Milne said the report is public information and available to anyone who wants to read it, but he thinks students often ignore the links and emails about the report.
USU student Austin Case said he tried to read the report when he received the email, but couldn’t find the link.
“I opened it and it said ‘Here’s all the recent crime stats that happened at USU that we’re obliged to post,'” Case said. “So I clicked on it to read it, and it brought me to some Utah State security page. I was like ‘This takes too much effort to get to where I want to go.'”
Case said he would have read the report if the link had taken him directly to the report instead of the Department of Public Safety homepage.
– chris.w.lee@aggiemail.usu.edu