NCJ Number
171202
Date Published
1997
Length
4 pages
Annotation
A hearing was convened in July 1997 by the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, Training, and Life-Long Learning to address the practical impact of elements included in the Accuracy in Campus Crime Reporting Act.
Abstract
The Director of the University Police Department for George Washington University and member of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators presented testimony. She noted the Campus Security Act of 1990 requires educational institutions to notify the campus community about various security policies and procedures, to report specified criminal offenses, and to provide timely notice to the campus community regarding crime. She also indicated there seems to be an unfounded belief by some individuals that educational institutions hide crime or purposely underreport crime and identified problems associated with accurate campus crime reporting, such as delay in receiving complete and concise regulations and initial difficulty in interpreting specific portions of the regulations. For example, at George Washington University, hate crimes were classified as a separate category rather than under the appropriate classification of murder, forcible rape, and aggravated assault as required by law. Testimony also focused on regulatory requirements related to crime reporting categories, the submission of crime statistics, accusations that educational institutions forward incidents of drug and weapon law violations to their internal judicial systems rather than arrest violators, the possible negative impact of open crime logs and open campus disciplinary hearings on certain crime categories such as sexual assault, and victim rights.