Are schools providing enough detail in their campus crime logs? The Los Angeles Loyolan reports on an unsettling trend in college security departments:
In the past few years at LMU, Public Safety's crime reports have gone from being informative detailed descriptions to vague two-liners. Once published in the Loyolan's "On The Prowl" every week, these reports list any criminal incidents that occur on or near campus.
According to Chief of Public Safety Ray Hilyar, the change in these reports, which took place in 2005, were made as a result of the new Jeanne Clery Act.
"We follow exactly what the Clery act asks us to do. That way we stay in compliance with the federal mandates, so the information we put out is what they recommend," said Hilyar.
According to the Jeanne Clery Act Web site, the Clery Act was signed into law in 1990, and was championed by Howard & Connie Clery after their daughter Jeanne was raped and murdered while asleep in her residence hall room at Lehigh University in 1986. Her parents had discovered that students hadn't been told about 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh campus in the three years before her murder. They joined with other campus crime victims and persuaded Congress to enact this law.
The act is part of a federal law that "requires colleges and universities to disclose certain timely and annual information about campus crime and security policies." The law requires that a school must maintain a public crime log of any crime that occurred on campus or within the patrol jurisdiction of the campus police.
The log is required to include the "nature, date, time, and general location of each crime" as well as its disposition if known. It also states that "only the most limited information necessary may be withheld and even then it must be released once the adverse effect is no longer likely to occur."
While the current LMU crime log is comparably bare to its precursor, it has all the basic information necessary required from the law.
The only instance when any school may withhold information is if there is "clear and convincing evidence that the release of such information would jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation or the safety of an individual, cause a suspect to flee or evade detection, or result in the destruction of evidence, " the law states.
"We have federal guidelines that we have to follow," said Hilyar.
Former Loyolan Editor-in-Chief Natalie Nordseth believes that the old detailed reports were more beneficial to the LMU community.
"It's really a shame," said Nordseth of the current crime log. "It definitely makes the media's job as a watchdog for the campus much more difficult. It's hard to see if there is a link between thefts or an upsurge of certain activities, when Public Safety withholds specifics from the public."
Natalie Minev, former Loyolan News Editor, agrees that it is the University's duty to inform students about the crimes occurring on their campus.
"I believe the purpose of campus crime logs in any university newspaper is to provide transparency about incidents happening on campus so that students feel safe and can take necessary precautions if needed," said Minev. "Our crime logs currently contain the minimum information required of Public Safety. I think they can include more adequate information in a way that will not compromise any confidential information and at the same time will help LMU become a more transparent and safe community."
ASLMU Senator Alex Centeno has been working with Senate on a report to present to Public Safety about amending the current crime log.
"I feel that the ambiguous language as well as [the missing] little details take away from the transparency in an institution that's supposed to protect us and sees that federal and state laws are enforced," he said.
"The crime log in 2005 and the crime log now has a disparity in words. It is a very big change how it used to be and how it is now. It's as ambiguous as 'mutual combat' - I don't know what that really is, should I be worried?" said Centeno.
According to Centeno, Senate has been researching crime logs in other Jesuit and private schools. He said he generally found more transparency and more detailed logs. Centeno said Senate is still in the research phase of their report, but plans to present a full report by the end of the school year that will include the difference in language from the crime log now and provide examples of crime logs in other schools around the area.
Generally we've laid out our issue with it. I've met with Patricia Coffelt [the captain of Public Safety], and she has told me that she does not see any changes in the near future. They have compliance with the Cleary act. We're seeing if the report will change their opinion, and seeing if it will change the opinion of the chief of Public Safety," said Centeno.
Centeno said he has talked to a lot of students regarding the issue. "The younger students don't take issue with it because they haven't seen the previous crime log, but older students who have seen the crime log do take issue with it."
"I think we can say too much sometimes and especially when it's really sensitive information like rape and assault," said Hilyar. "Sometimes when we put too much information like what room, where it happened, what dorm, people automatically find out and it's not good for the victim to have that information out there. Quite often, most of the things we have in there are under investigation and we can't give out information. [It's] not that we don't want you to know, but if the suspect knows what we know it makes it hard to investigate a case. It's all private information and we're very sensitive about that.
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