Campus Crime

Institutional Reporting

In 1986, Jeanne Clery, a student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was raped and murdered by Joseph M. Henry, a fellow student who entered Clery's dorm through security doors propped open by pizza boxes. Henry was convicted and sentenced to death. In the wake of their daughter's murder, lobbying efforts by Jeanne's parents helped create federal legislation, The Student-Right-To-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990 (20 U.S.C. 1092), which forced colleges and universities receiving federal financial aid to report crimes occurring on their campuses. Subsequent amendments to the act in the late 1990s included renaming it the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act.

Jeanne Ann Clery (1966–1986). She was murdered as she slept in her dorm room at Lehigh University. Her death spawned a grassroots movement that led to the Clery Act, named in her memory.

Photo used by permission.

The Clery Act applies to public and private schools participating in federal financial aid programs and requires postsecondary institutions to publish, by October 1 of each year, a report containing three years of crime statistics for the school, and detailing the school's security policies, the enforcement authority of campus police, and the names of those to whom students should report crime. The number of homicides (murder and manslaughter), sex offenses (rape, incest, and statutory rape), robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, and arsons must be included in the report, as well as liquor and drug law violations, and firearms offenses. The report must also include the location of all crimes, whether on campus, in public areas adjacent to or running through campus, or in off-campus facilities such as fraternity housing or satellite classrooms. Finally, the report must indicate if an offense involving bodily injury was a “hate crime.” The report must then be made available to current and prospective students, employees, and the U.S. Department of Education, which maintains a searchable data base of Clery statistics on its Web site.

Despite the legislation, problems remain with institutionally provided crime statistics. First, the data do not include property theft. Theft is the most common crime on college campuses; by excluding it, an incomplete picture of campus crime is created. Second, there continues to be institutional confusion over the statute's provisions, as well as noncompliance with its terms, which again creates a potentially inaccurate picture of campus crime. Finally, counts by themselves tell little about the crime problem at a specific school. Simply [Page 146]because one school has a greater number of offenses than another does not mean it is more dangerous. In order to be meaningful, comparisons among schools should be standardized and must also take into account location (city, suburban, or rural), type of school (residential or commuter), geographic region, campus security arrangements, and other considerations (see sidebar, “Calculating Campus Crime Rates”).

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