The recent release of the annual NAUPD-issued Clery Report for 2010 contains campus crime statistics for the past three years, safety suggestions for students and clarification of various campus bylaws and rules. This federally mandated account is designed to keep students informed about the safety of the campus at which they work, live and learn.

Amanda Loveless, coordinator for the Office of Student Life, said the Clery Report stems from crime reporting legislation passed by Congress in 1990 after the 1986 rape and murder of a student attending Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

“There was a Jeanne Clery who was basically murdered on a college campus,” Loveless said. “It’s actually a federal reporting that we have to do for funding. What the lawsuit and what people said was that if she had known — if her parents would have known —the crime statistics on her campus, she might not have gone there. And this helps students figure out if this is a safe place or not. And if you look at our numbers, we have a very safe campus.”

Lance Wigley, community relations officer for NAUPD, said the annual article not only provides students with numerical figures on crime, but also provides helpful information and tips on how to be safe while on campus.

“The Clery Report is just one of the ways that NAUPD insures open and honest communication with the community we serve,” Wigley said. “In addition with merely providing crime statistics, which are important to maintaining a healthy awareness of the security situation on campus, the report describes in detail the comprehensive efforts by the university to maintain a safe learning, working and living environment.”
Although most of the statistics in the report remained relatively static between 2007 and 2009, there was a large increase in alcohol law violations between 2008 and 2009. Between those two years, the number of infractions reported to the department rose from 63 to 210 incidents, and the number of incidents handled by other university agencies climbed from 1034 to 1936.
Wigley said although the increases in alcohol law violations may be owed to the increasing number of underage students on campus and reporting techniques, it may also be an anomaly resulting from more students being referred for offenses at the same number of incidents.

“The changing population dynamics are certainly a factor in the increase,” Wigley said. “However, other factors — such as case management process improvements — could have driven the increase, as well. It is important to remember, on the Clery Report, alcohol and drug offenses are reported in terms of individual sanctions — referrals, arrests, etc., whereas the other crimes are reported in terms of incident. For example, if RAs [resident assistants] respond to a party in a dorm room, and it ends up that 20 people are referred, although this is one incident, it accounts for 20 referrals. This factor alone can make alcohol incidents stand out against the other types of crime reported in terms of sheer numbers.”

Loveless said the shift may be the result of several different factors but is more likely an anomaly, because the rise in student referrals was not accompanied by a similar shift in reported incidents.
“It could be a bunch of different factors,” Loveless said. “We just moved to a new system, so we may be tracking them better. We have a whole lot more students, which may have something to do with it. But, if you look at the numbers in Clery, the cases are fairly close. It’s just that we have more students involved in those cases.”

Loveless said the role of the Office of Student Life is to cooperate with Residence Life (ResLife) to hear cases for infractions of campus rules, including alcohol law offenses.
“Reporting-wise, we are the ones who house all of the conduct files on campus,” Loveless said. “So, anything that happens outside of the residence halls dealing with alcohol — we would hear those cases, as well as anything that was in the residence halls where we might be looking at suspension or expulsion. We work in partnership with ResLife staff.”

Loveless said the enforcement of state laws, campus statutes and residence hall rules benefits the students who study, work and live at NAU.

“We’re really trying to make sure you guys are supported and are kind of following behaviors that we have found help you graduate in the long term, as well as keep a safe community on campus,” Loveless said. “We really do a lot with education students about what their role is as a citizen on this campus.”