Burglary is still the most highly reported crime on campus, according to the annual security and fire report.
The report, released Sept. 30, is required by The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. The act, a consumer protection law passed in 1990, requires all universities that receive federal funding to share information about crime on campus through an annual security report, according to clerycenter.org.
There have been 30 burglaries on campus since 2012, according to the report.
“There haven’t been that many theft reports this year,” said Bradd Brown, chief of police. “This year is not reflected in this report, but so far the number of calls has been down.”
The report also shows there were four cases of sexual assault on campus in 2014. Three were reported to happen in campus housing and one on campus grounds.
Under the Clery Act, the police department is required to send a timely warning to the campus community about sexual assaults occurring on campus if they think there is any immediate threat, Brown said.
“Generally speaking, a lot of sexual assaults that occur and are reported are between people who know each other very well,” Brown said. “I would say that most sexual assaults that happen on campus occur within dating relationship and things might have gone a little too far. There is a whole range of things when you are looking at sexual assault. We have to look at an incident and we have to determine if there is any type of threat at all, then we will put out that timely warning.”
One of the four reported sexual assaults resulted in a timely warning being distributed.
“So the one assault, since we did not know the suspect and we did not have enough information, we felt that it was a threat to the university and we put out that timely warning,” Brown said. “The other numbers in here, based on the circumstances, we didn’t feel those created a credible threat.”
There were no reports of aggravated assault, murder or arson.
“If you look at our stats and compare to other universities, I think you would find that we have a really safe campus,” Brown said.
The 52-page report also covers all police department policies and discusses ways to report and attend to crimes on campus. The full report is available online for all campus community members.
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