The Clery Report, which informs the campus of crime as mandated by law, was released in September. It shows a decrease in liquor law violations, drug law violations and burglaries in judicial referrals on campus.
There was sometimes an inverse relationship, however, because as the referrals went down, the number of arrests increased. On campus, drug law arrests increased from 25 to 32, but the disciplinary referrals decreased from 49 to 12.
Three more arrests for liquor law violations took place on campus, but the number of violations was reduced from 425 to 174.
University Police Chief Cynthia Adam said in an email that this was because the Clery Act changed the definitions and classifications of the terminology.
“There was a decrease from last year in Clery reportable disciplinary referrals,” the report states. “This is due to our institution’s better understanding of the regulations regarding how crimes should be classified and counted and is not due to an actual increase or decrease in reported crimes,” Adam said.
There was an increase in marijuana possession arrests this year, Adam said.
“UPD is not being ‘stricter’ in regards to enforcement in any area but the number of arrests for marijuana possession was up this past year,” Adam said. “That increase is more about student behavior in terms of students being found to be in possession of marijuana both on the campus grounds, in the parking lots, in plain view inside a vehicle during a traffic stop or inside a residence hall. UPD did focus enforcement along the lakefront in an attempt last fall to discourage reports of large parties that had happened there in the spring semester previously but UPD has always enforced in this area and that is not anything new.”
Assistant Dean of Students Lisa Evaneski offered insight on the report and how statistics are reported.
“There are things we have to report specifically for the Clery Report, but they don’t want all of it,” Evaneski said in an email. “For example, they don’t want us to report DWI’s.”
The Clery Report’s time frame from reporting statistics also differs from Oswego State reporting.
“Our statistics we keep for the College are by academic year, not calendar year,” Evaneski said. “We had 509 (2009-2010) and 530 (2010-2011) alcohol policy violations for students under 21 but not all of them are included in the Clery Report.”
Another increase was seen in Forcible Sex Offenses, which includes rape. In 2009, one crime was reported while in 2010 that number jumped to five. The numbers, however, may not reflect the number of incidents as much as they reflect the willingness of victims to report crimes.
“I think reports of sex offenses are up because the brave victims have been encouraged to take some action and have trusted us to help them through the process,” Evaneski said. “We have done a lot of presentations to students and parents at orientation about the need to report so we can get help to victims. This year we are doing even more awareness programming for student employees, athletes, student organizations and college employees – so I would not be surprised if those numbers go up. Our main goal is to get help to victims and let them know their options.”
