BYUH's crime reporting inaccurate, group says

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Three years after a federal agency began posting college crime statistics online, a private watchdog agency charges that many of the nation's college campuses — including Brigham Young University-Hawai'i — are not reporting their statistics accurately and therefore undercutting an effort to make campuses safer.

Security officer Hans Taala patrols the Brigham Young University-Hawai'i campus in La'ie. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

The reporting requirements are part of the federal Jeanne Clery Act, named in memory of a 19-year-old freshman who was raped and murdered at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University in 1986. The law mandates that by Oct. 1 every year all campuses receiving federal aid must either post on their Web sites, or publicly disseminate, reports of campus crimes during the preceding year. The purpose of the requirement is to disclose potential dangers to students and parents.

"Having the full benefit of this information will allow students and employees to make informed decisions about avoiding crime victimization," said S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president of Security on Campus, which was founded by Clery's parents.

In Hawai'i, the only discrepancies reported among 26 colleges and universities are at BYUH, which has already been under federal scrutiny because of reporting problems a year ago that surfaced after complaints by the student newspaper. Issues centered around access to the daily campus crime log, which was not publicly available 24 hours a day as mandated, and the adequate dissemination of crime statistics on campus.

For 2001, the latest figures available, BYUH reported five burglaries.

But the watchdog agency said BYUH omitted 17 burglaries from a report published on campus, 12 of which the group said were also not reported to the U.S. Department of Education. The group also says a drug arrest was excluded.

A spokesman for the La'ie campus administration said any omissions were inadvertent and will be cleared up for next year's reporting deadline of Oct. 1, 2003.

"We're certainly not blatantly omitting things or trying not to comply. We're doing everything we can. It's all technical problems that we're facing," said Isileli Kongaika, vice president for Student Life at BYU-Hawai'i. "When we reported it to Human Resources, they took the old book which has a different format, which is different categories than what we submitted to them."

Renewed scrutiny of BYUH comes as security is being closely watched on college campuses nationwide. The most notable case involves St. Mary's College in San Francisco, where alleged omissions in crime report statistics, especially concerning sexual assaults, have brought about the resignation of one dean.

Students warned

While sexual assault numbers appear low on Hawai'i campuses, a warning was posted on the UH-Manoa Web site in February that two attempted assaults had occurred in student residential halls while female students slept. In both cases the intruders were scared off. Several similar cases also were reported the previous year, but there have been no such cases since February, said UH-Manoa campus security officer Donald Dawson. In all cases the doors to the rooms had been left unlocked while the student was sleeping.

At BYUH, administrator Kongaika said there is concern about potential off-campus assaults and rapes if students walk alone at night on the beach or in the La'ie town area. As a result, he said, warnings are sent to students each semester.

In general, however, crime on Hawai'i college campuses appears modest, with increases in some categories, but numbers close to last year's. At UH-Manoa, burglaries actually decreased, going from 85 in 2000 to 58 in 2001.

Some of the most troubling numbers are related to alcohol consumption, and Bath said crime on campus "is almost always linked to drinking."

UH-Manoa security captain Dawson and drug and alcohol counselor Mike Taleff agree.

"Burglaries generally happen when people are a little intoxicated," said Taleff. "And there's more of a tendency to throw beer bottles off the top floors of our dorms when people are intoxicated."

The latest UH-Manoa statistics involving liquor infractions show an increase from the year before, with 295 disciplinary actions for liquor law violations on campus in 2001, compared with 258 in 2000.

At Chaminade University, on-campus liquor violations dropped from 61 in 2000 to 47 last year. Both are a dramatic drop from the 148 reported in 1999.

While Bath said some schools condone binge drinking by supporting events where large amounts of alcohol are consumed, the opposite is happening on the Manoa campus.

The administration is trying to curb drinking by adding monthly events such as midnight basketball and dance parties, hoping to bring students together socially without the need for alcohol. The school is also considering smoke-free and alcohol-free dorms. Counselors say young people can fall into drinking when other activities aren't available.

Each year the U.S. Department of Education posts all campus crime reports on its national Web site so families can learn as much as possible about schools in which they're interested. The statistics are at: http://ope.ed.gov/security, and those for 2001 were posted in the past two weeks.

Nationally more than 6,000 institutions of higher learning have crime statistics posted on the federal DOE Web site.

The BYUH complaints were brought to light by the campus newspaper, which a year ago wrote stories about alleged omissions, and a lack of access to campus crime statistics by students.

"There were 12 campus burglaries and not one got reported last year," said Joseph Curdy, the former student newspaper reporter who co-authored stories alleging oversight, referring to statistics from 2000. "Every single thing they said they would fix, they didn't. This is an ongoing issue. They say they'll use the campus newspaper to update information about crimes and they're not doing that anymore."

Kongaika said the logs are available for public scrutiny in the security office, but they must have confidential information removed first. He said they are given to the campus newspaper weekly, and it's up to the campus newspaper to publish, but they don't.

Crime logs available

Present student newspaper editor Kristen Woodworth said crime logs from the security office have been fairly inconsistent over the semester, and often made available only when requested. But she agreed that the newspaper doesn't always have space to run them.

"If they want, they can come to the office and look at the log," said Kongaika. "If anyone wants to look at the log it's available 24 hours a day."

Since last year the federal DOE has worked with BYUH to resolve the problems.

"Our goal is not to have schools lose their eligibility to participate in federal programs; that would only hurt students," said U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman Jane Glickman. "Our goal is for schools to follow the law and provide the information to their school community that helps parents and students make wise decisions about where they want to attend school."

In the 10 years that the Clery law has been on the books, only one school has been fined — $25,000 — and none has lost financing, said Glickman. As of April 2000 the department had completed 343 audits and program reviews identifying campus security violations since 1993. But the department has also worked with hundreds of other schools to bring them into compliance.

"We're not a police force," said Glickman. "Our intent with all federal regulations and laws is to have schools carry them out the best they can and to work with them to do it."

The watchdog agency, while private, often brings complaints to the federal department's attention.

"We get calls from either students or employees at universities, basically blowing the whistle," said Bath, of Security on Campus. "Usually when a school is called on the carpet for not complying with the Clery Act they fall all over themselves in making changes. This is what we're about — making campuses safer."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.

Correction: The Pennsylvania nonprofit group Security on Campus alleges Brigham Young University-Hawai'i has omitted 17 burglaries from a report published on campus, 12 of which the group said were also not reported to the U.S. Department of Education. Numbers in a previous version of this story and chart were incorrect.