Drug and Alcohol Arrests Increased on Campuses in 2000

College officials say crime reporting is easier and data are more accurate

By JULIE L. NICKLIN

Drug arrests at the nation's colleges increased 10.2 percent in 2000, a rise that some

ALSO SEE: Crimes on 6,269 Campuses The Scope of Campus Crime 4-Year Campuses With the Most Arrests and Referrals in 2000 Crime on College Campuses: data collected and articles published by The Chronicle since 1992-93

college officials attribute to a more casual attitude among students toward drugs, particularly marijuana.

The growth was nearly twice as much as in 1999. The number of liquor arrests also grew more in 2000, rising 4.2 percent, compared with just 0.4 percent in 1999.

The figures are based on trend data from 6,269 nonprofit and for-profit educational institutions, released last month by the U.S. Education Department. It is only the second year that the department has compiled information on campus crime, but the trends generally conform to those in surveys taken by The Chronicle since 1993.

Many college officials say that the bugs that plagued the collection process last year have mostly been eliminated, and the data are hence more reliable. However, some red flags are still being raised. Based on a complaint, the Education Department has accused one institution, Salem International University, of intentionally underreporting crimes.

According to a Chronicle analysis of the department's data, Pennsylvania State University at University Park in 2000 made the most drug arrests, 175, and Michigan State University reported the most arrests for violations of liquor laws, 852.

As for other crimes, 16 murders occurred on campuses in 2000, five more than in 1999. The department's Web site lists the total in 2000 as 20, but The Chronicle found that four of those murders did not occur. Officials of Boricua College, Grand Canyon University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Pomona College were surprised to learn that the Web site indicated that murders had occurred on their campuses during that year, and said they must have given the department inaccurate information.

The number of forcible sex offenses, including rape, sodomy, and fondling, fell slightly, while nonforcible sex offenses rose nearly 2 percent. By definition, nonforcible offenses include only incest and statutory rape, but campus officials often incorrectly lump such crimes as voyeurism and indecent exposure in the category.

The number of robberies, burglaries, and aggravated assaults on campuses grew slightly, while incidents of arson increased 8.5 percent. Motor-vehicle thefts and arrests for weapons-law violations decreased. The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center reported the most weapons arrests, 22. Campus officials say that the majority of those arrested were patients and visitors to the hospital's emergency room, which has a metal detector.

The Education Department's data also includes crimes that occurred at off-campus locations as well as on public property surrounding campuses and, in some cases, several miles away. When adding those locations, 391 murders occurred on and around campuses in 2000, along with 3,982 forcible sex offenses, 42,455 liquor arrests, and 25,351 drug arrests.

Federal law requires educational institutions whose students receive federal financial aid to collect data on the crimes occurring on their campuses, and make public three years' worth of statistics.

Under changes approved by Congress in 1998, the Education Department was or dered to compile the data annually, which it did for the first time in the fall of 2000, collecting data for calendar years 1997, 1998, and 1999.

That first attempt was fraught with problems. Institutions were frustrated by changes in the crime-reporting law, by difficulties in inputting the data, and by crashes in the Education Department's computer system. The confusion led to irregularities and errors in what many campuses reported.

For the second collection, which gathered crime statistics for 2000 and was completed in October, the Education Department beefed up its technology. The process went much more smoothly and efficiently, department officials and campus police officers agree.

The trend data is now available on a department Web site (http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/PPI/security.html), and an institution-by-institution breakdown of reported crimes can be found at another site (http://ope.ed.gov/security).

"There are still problems," says S. Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, a campus-crime watchdog group in King of Prussia, Pa. "But the genuine confusion is not as great."

Of the 11,276 drug arrests on campuses, 89 percent, or 10,004, occurred at public and private, nonprofit four-year institutions.

Five public institutions, each enrolling more than 28,000 students, made more than 125 drug arrests: Penn State, Michigan State, Indiana University at Bloomington, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Iowa.

Penn State's 175 drug arrests were roughly double the number it made in 1999. Of the 175, 116 were made in campus residence halls, up from just 17 in 1999.

The majority of those arrests were for marijuana, says Bruce N. Kline, assistant director of Penn State's police department. However, campus officials are not sure that is the drug of choice among students; it is just the most noticeable because of its smell. Police officials credit the dormitory's resident advisers with sterner enforcement, saying that the institution has taken a strong stance against the use of illegal substances. "Before, most RA's if they smelled marijuana, they would ignore it, or if they did any disciplining, it was internally," Mr. Kline says. "Now they're calling us."

Some scholars have criticized the federal law requiring colleges to more aggressively report crimes, saying it may cause resident advisers, who are supposed to be counselors and advocates for students, to become an arm of law enforcement.

Diane L. Andrews, Penn State's senior associate director of residence life, has a different view. She says Penn State's RA's have always taken their jobs seriously, but have not grown stricter.

She attributes the higher numbers to increased -- and more obvious -- drug use, especially of marijuana, so it's coming to the advisers' attention much more readily.

"Students are a lot more open about it today, so when you come to their room, they're just sitting there with the paraphernalia, " Ms. Andrews says. "It's just more blatant. They don't care about putting the towel under the door anymore."

A report by Harvard University's School of Public Health says that marijuana use by college students nationwide increased nearly 22 percent from 1993 to 1999.

Even though drug arrests in 2000 increased more than did liquor arrests, the number of people arrested for such violations as underage drinking remained higher.

Out of 26,091 liquor arrests, more than 90 percent, or 24,591, occurred on the campuses of four-year, public and private colleges and universities.

Six institutions -- all public universities with more than 28,000 students -- made more than 400 liquor arrests each: Michigan State, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Western Michigan University, Indiana at Bloomington, Arizona State University, and Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge.

Michigan State, which ranked No. 1, with 852 liquor arrests, actually reported four fewer in 2000 than it did in 1999. Of the 852, 163 were made in residence halls.

David L. Trexler, a police captain at Michigan State, defends the numbers, saying they don't mean that his institution has a bigger problem with underage drinking than any other campus. The arrest numbers can rise or fall depending on how many home football games there are or how many officers are on duty at a given time.

"I don't think people should be alarmed by the numbers, but there should be concern," he says. "We don't go out looking for those violations, but our officers don't look the other way."

Wisconsin's Madison campus held the No. 2 spot with 671 liquor arrests, up considerably from the 446 reported in 1999. Of the 671, only 98 were made in residence halls. Campus police officers say that most of the arrests were made on property adjoining the campus, and that 30 or 40 percent of those arrested were not students.

While some campuses dealt with alcohol and drug violations through arrests, others handled them largely through the campus judiciary.

In 2000, the 6,269 institutions made 120,063 liquor referrals to their campus judicial systems, and 21,199 drug referrals. Of those, 115,838 liquor referrals and 19,693 drug referrals were reported by four-year institutions.

Crime experts say that only when referrals are added to arrests can one get a complete portrait of the problems colleges face with drinking.

The University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus reported the highest number of liquor referrals, with 1,310. It was followed by the University of Vermont, which reported 998 liquor referrals, but only five arrests. Vermont also ranked No. 1 for drug referrals, with 377. It made 26 drug arrests.

Gary J. Margolis, chief of police services at Vermont, points out that in July 2000, the state "decriminalized" liquor-law violations, making them civil offenses, much like speeding tickets, that are handled by the municipal ordinance system rather than by criminal courts.

Most of the university's drug referrals came through resident advisers in the dorms. The campus police have an "understanding" with the local state attorney's office that the college has a strict enough campus judicial system that it can handle minor drug violations -- the student caught with a single joint, for instance. But if a student is caught dealing or possessing large amounts of drugs, that will still go through the criminal courts.

"No one on campus would argue we don't take this seriously," says Mr. Margolis. "Some think we hold our students too accountable."

Of the 16 murders on campuses in 2000, three occurred at Seton Hall University. A fire in a residence hall, in which three freshmen perished, and more than 50 others were injured, was ruled arson. No one has been charged, and that investigation is continuing.

Even though forcible sex offenses reported on campuses dipped by 0.5 percent, to 1,858, in 2000, crime experts say that change shouldn't be interpreted to mean that fewer offenses occurred. Rape is the most underreported crime, and campuses continue to have a tough time balancing the privacy of the victim with the rights of the perpetrator.

Now, a case before the U.S. Supreme Court could alter what colleges are willing to disclose about students accused of certain crimes. Last month, the court agreed to decide whether private colleges can be sued for giving out personal information about students. A graduate of Gonzaga University charged that university officials revealed that he had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman while he was a student there in the early 1990s. A jury ordered the college to pay him $1-million.

Many colleges remain confused about how rape statistics should be reported under the existing law.

In December, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for example, corrected inaccurate information it had given to the Education Department, after the error was discovered by The Capital Times, a local newspaper.

The university had reported that in 2000, two forcible sex offenses occurred on campus, and none in the dorms, and that in 1999 four were reported on campus, but none in the dorms.

In fact, 19 forcible sex offenses were reported in 2000, of which nine were in residence halls. In 1999, seven forcible offenses occurred, of which two were in dorms.

Dale Burke, a captain with the university's police department, explains that officials had previously not included rapes reported to the dean of students.

"We weren't trying to keep this information from the people," he says. "There was a screw-up in how this was supposed to be reported."

In some cases, the errors may have been more intentional. A review by the Education Department found that Salem International, in West Virginia, failed to report at least five sexual assaults and a number of other crimes from 1997 through 1999.

The inquiry had been prompted by a complaint from the local police chief, E.T. Howell, who charged that campus security officers were not alerting the town's law-enforcement agency when crimes occurred on campus.

Mr. Howell says that students came to the local police department complaining that they had been the victims of crimes. But when he'd ask college security officers for information, he was stonewalled. Meanwhile, evidence and leads in cases would dry up.

"To me, they went out of their way to keep us off campus," he says. "Frankly, I didn't know what else to do but to contact someone to make them help us investigate crimes."

In December, the department sent a letter to Salem International stating that a review team had discovered the underreporting, leading some to wonder whether the omissions "may have resulted from the deliberate and/or willful acts of one or more university officials."

A campus watchdog group calculates that the college faces a fine of up to $250,000. Campus officials have 60 days to respond, in writing, to each allegation and to state how they plan to correct the problem.

As to whether campus officials were deliberately covering up criminal behavior, Fred Zook, the university's interim president, says, "I don't know if that's provable. But the people they're talking about are not here anymore."

Under changes in federal law, institutions in 1999 were forced to expand their reporting on hate crimes. In 2000, campuses reported a total of 555 crimes attributed to hate, an increase of 38 percent over 1999. Most of the crimes were simple or aggravated assaults; 52 were forcible sex offenses.

Jeffrey A. Ross, national director for campus and higher-education affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, attributes the overall increase in hate crimes to better reporting, rather than an increase in incidents.

The legislative changes, he says, have forced colleges to tackle the issue, and to come up with new ways to deal with the perpetrators and victims of hate crimes.

"Historically, at colleges and universities, you have a culture of denial," Mr. Ross says. Officials would treat a hate crime as an isolated event, a "public-relations matter, rather than a human-relations matter."

Campus-crime watchdogs agree, saying that's true of other crimes as well. Although it is difficult to draw conclusions about what increases and decreases in the statistics mean, they say, getting the numbers out is critical.

"The most important lesson is that these campuses are not crime free," says Mr. Carter, of Security on Campus. "And if there is a major problem on a campus, people have the right to know."

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