FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 19, 2001
King of Prussia, PA-Nearly 400,000 serious crimes, including 754 homicides, were reported on and around American college and university campuses in 1999 according to a new U.S. Department of Education report issued today.
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1997
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1998
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1999
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| Murder/Non-negligent manslaughter | 18 | 24 | 11 |
| Negligent manslaughter | n/a | n/a | 10 |
| Forcible sex offenses | 1,668 | 1,772 | 1,842 |
| Non forcible sex offenses | 472 | 565 | 627 |
| Robbery | 1,810 | 1,862 | 1,997 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3,754 | 3,856 | 3,777 |
| Burglary | 26,757 | 25,685 | 26,035 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 6,732 | 6,050 | 6,201 |
| Arson | n/a | n/a | 1,167 |
| TOTAL | 41,211 | 39,814 | 41,667 |
The Clerys joined with other crime victims and persuaded Congress to pass a law in 1990 that requires colleges to make their campus crime statistics public, and a 1998 amendment to that law renamed it the "Jeanne Clery Act" in memory of the Clery’s daughter and required the report issued today.
Indicative of the "Binge Drinking" problems facing most campuses today, the single largest amount of offenses were alcohol related. There were 25,933 arrests and 108,846 student disciplinary referrals for liquor law violations in 1999.
There was an overall one percent increase in reported on-campus crime in 1999 over 1998 with increases in 5 major categories, and a drop in murders and aggravated assaults. In 1999 there were 11 on-campus murders, down from 24 the year before; 1,842 forcible sex offenses, up from 1,772 for 1998; 1,997 robberies up from 1,862; 3,777 aggravated assaults down from 3,856; 26,035 burglaries up from 25,685; and 6,201 motor vehicle thefts up from 6,050. In the first year arson statistics were collected, a total of 1,167 incidents were reported.
"At about only two thousand the amount of sex offenses reported still seems unrealistically low," said S. Daniel Carter the vice-president of Security On Campus, Inc. a non-profit watchdog organization established by the Clery family. "Schools still need to be more forthright and encourage more student victims to report," he added.
Of the 215,558 crimes broken down by geographic category, 41,667 occurred on campus (14,259 of those in residence halls), 17,085 occurred at campus related properties like remote classrooms and fraternity houses, while the majority 156,806 were reported for areas around campuses. 1999 was the first year schools were required to collect information about crimes occurring near campus and the areas included often varied widely from school to school.
The report is on-line at: http://campussafety.org/information/crimestats/doe2001.pdf