From the issue dated May 16, 2003
|
|
|
Drug and Alcohol Arrests Increased on Campuses in 2001Experts attribute trend to tougher enforcement, not increased student useBy ERIC HOOVER Drug arrests at the nation's colleges increased for the 10th consecutive year, rising by 5.5 percent in 2001.
Many college police officials attribute those changes to tougher enforcement on campuses, and some of them say students are increasingly intolerant of substance abuse among their peers -- and more likely to contact campus officers when they confront it. The figures are based on a Chronicle analysis of data from 4,711 two-year and four-year, nonprofit and for-profit educational institutions that are eligible for federal financial aid. The statistics were released earlier this year by the U.S. Education Department. According to that analysis, Pennsylvania State University at University Park made the most drug arrests, 173, and Michigan State University reported the most arrests for liquor-law violations, 898. Michigan State also reported the most arrests for weapons-law violations, 32. Nationally, weapons-law violations on college campuses rose 10.5 percent, to 1,478. Campus police officials at several colleges that made the greatest number of those arrests say that the majority of the violations involved weapons other than firearms, however. As for other crimes, there were 18 incidents of murder or non-negligent manslaughter on campuses in 2001, one fewer than in 2000. The number of forcible sex offenses, including rape, sodomy, and fondling, increased 9 percent, to 2,125. Some campus-safety officials, however, believe that the actual number of sex offenses is much higher because such offenses are the most underreported crime. They estimate that one in five women experience at least an attempted sexual assault while they are in college. The number of nonforcible sex offenses declined slightly, to 555. By definition, nonforcible offenses include only incest and statutory rape. The number of robberies and burglaries grew slightly. Incidents of aggravated assault dropped by 3.8 percent. Campus officials also reported a 7.4-percent drop in incidents of arson. Motor-vehicle thefts increased by 11.8 percent. Better Reporting The number of hate crimes, which the department defines as crimes against a person or property motivated by bias toward race, religion, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation, remained unchanged from the previous year. Campus safety experts say that more colleges are complying with requirements for reporting hate crimes, however. "It's not that given institutions are reporting hate crimes better, but that they are reporting hate crimes at all," says Jeffrey A. Ross, national director for campus and higher-education affairs at the Anti-Defamation League. When hate crimes occur on campuses "the tendency has been denial," he says. "That's getting better, but we've got a long ways to go." A federal law, the Clery Act, requires all colleges to report by each October 1 data on crimes that occurred on their campuses the previous year. Under legislative changes to the law in 1998, the Education Department was ordered, beginning in 2000, to collect the information from colleges, analyze it, and prepare a report for Congress. The department's first attempt to collect such data in 2000 was fraught with problems. Many colleges were frustrated by the changes in the crime-reporting law, by the difficulty of inputting the data, and by crashes in the department's computer server. The process has since gone more smoothly, according to department officials and campus police officers. "This year was not as bad in terms of errors," says Howard Clery III, of Security on Campus Inc., a campus-crime watchdog group in King of Prussia, Pa. "Schools have had plenty of time to comply, so they should have figured out this process by now." Mr. Clery is the brother of Jeanne Ann Clery, who was raped and murdered in her dormitory room at Lehigh University in 1986, and in whose memory the crime-reporting law is named. Although the Education Department did not compute national trend data, an institution-by-institution breakdown of reported crimes can be found on a department Web site (http://ope.ed.gov/security). Experts on campus safety caution against making comparisons based on raw numbers. They say that low numbers do not necessarily mean that a campus is safe, and that high numbers do not always mean that one is unsafe. Numerous factors can make the reporting of crime statistics inconsistent. An institution's size, its policing strategies, and its location all influence the number and type of crimes that occur. Increasing Substance Abuse? Six public institutions, each enrolling more than 30,000 students, made more than 130 drug arrests: Penn State, Indiana University at Bloomington, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Washington at Seattle, Arizona State University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Police officials at some of those institutions say that the number of arrests on their campuses simply reflects the size of their campuses. Others say that the sharp increases or declines in the number of arrests from year to year may have little to do with a university's policies. Bruce N. Kline, assistant director of Penn State's police department, says he cannot explain why the university's drug arrests (most of which were for marijuana) leveled off: In 2000, Penn State made twice as many drug arrests as it made the previous year, but in 2001, the total fell by two, to 173. Yet Mr. Kline says that students are becoming "more conservative" about drug use and that resident advisers are enforcing campus rules more tightly than before, a view that is shared by campus police officials elsewhere. "It used to be that if there was a drug arrest made on campus, it was the result of the initiative of police themselves. But now we're seeing more residents reporting the smell of marijuana" in dormitories, Mr. Kline says. "It's attitudes that are changing, not policies. Students are becoming more aware of the consequences of drugs and alcohol and how they relate to other crimes." Meanwhile, some health researchers say the increases reflect their findings that use of drugs and alcohol has risen nationally in recent years. A report by Harvard University's School of Public Health, for example, finds that marijuana use by college students increased nearly 22 percent from 1993 to 1999. Even though drug arrests in 2001 increased more than did liquor arrests, the number of people arrested for underage drinking remained significantly higher. Five institutions -- all public universities enrolling more than 25,000 students -- reported more than 400 liquor arrests each: Michigan State, Wisconsin at Madison, Western Michigan University, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, and Indiana at Bloomington. Michigan State's 898 liquor arrests were up from 852 last year. "We're not taking a heavy-handed approach," says David Trexler, a police captain at Michigan State. "But our numbers are going to be up there -- we're a large university with a lot of resources, so we do pretty much crack down on alcohol violations. Our numbers are going to look different than other institutions." Mr. Trexler notes that arrest totals may fluctuate because of a number of factors, such as which college Michigan State happens to be playing in football on a particular weekend. At large universities with big-time sports programs, arrests tend to soar on game days, particularly when archrival teams are in town. Like many campus police officials, Mr. Trexler notes that an institution's arrest totals generally include a sizable percentage of people with no affiliation to the campus. He estimates that half of the university's reported liquor arrests in 2002 were of nonstudents, for example. And what should happen to those students who are caught breaking drug and liquor laws? Many universities have adopted "zero tolerance" policies over the years, arresting more students for violations. Yet questions are arising on some campuses about whether such policies are too harsh. At the University of Iowa, which reported the eighth highest number of drug arrests in 2001, for example, members of a special committee studying the institution's arrest rates are urging the administration to revisit its drug policies. Currently, students caught with small amounts of marijuana in dormitories face possible incarceration and eviction from their rooms. Yet students caught with alcohol receive considerably less-severe punishments from the university. Members of the Iowa panel, which includes students and faculty members, are suggesting that the administration consider ending that discrepancy by referring students caught with small amounts of marijuana to the campus judicial system, with a requirement that offenders attend drug-education programs. "There has to be a better way," Judy Polumbaum, an associate professor of journalism and the chairwoman of the panel, told The Daily Iowan. "In my days, the consequences were not so severe. Society has changed a lot." Mr. Clery, of the watchdog group, cautions that colleges alone may not be able to send strong messages to students. "Campus judicial systems are not the best suited for dealing with things like drug arrests and sexual-assault victims -- they tend to give very light sentences," he says. "You need to have some type of serious punishment in order to assuage that type of activity, to show that there are consequences for actions." 4-YEAR CAMPUSES WITH THE MOST ARRESTS IN 2001
THE SCOPE OF CAMPUS CRIME
CRIMES ON 4,711 CAMPUSES
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 49, Issue 36, Page A38
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education