With online harassment, domestic violence and sexual abuse policies and plans of action popping up at universities nationwide, Clery Act safety and crime reporting has been refined to meet growing student needs.
The 2013-2014 Annual Security and Fire Safety report, published by the Bradley University Police Department (BUPD) Oct. 1, revealed three new reporting categories and numerous informational revisions meant to enhance the reporting and education of crimes of violence while keeping up with national trends.
Many of the report’s changes sprang from the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013. The act holds offenders of crimes against women accountable for their actions, while also providing the victims of these crimes with services and programs. This national legal mandate intends to increase awareness and proactivity.
BUPD Chief Joschko said domestic violence is the broadest of the three categories, but that dating violence, often associated with online dating sites, lacks the physical contact but can still lead to violent issues.
“Let’s say you have an online dating relationship and never met the person – that is not going to constitute domestic violence,” Joschko said. “You need to have met the person for it to be domestic. But let’s say your online boyfriend makes a threat, that could be categorized as dating violence.”
Joschko said these two new categories, in addition to the stalking category, were created to help campuses identify with national trends while keeping information in the hands of their students. However, Joschko said students should not be overzealous in using the annual safety report as a representation of whether or not the campus is safe.
The Clery Act, legislation meant to provide a basis for school safety reporting, is the only means of comparison universities currently have.
“I wholeheartedly understand why the law was implemented, and I think at the end of the day we’re a better place with this in place than before this act was initiated because there was truly nothing there,” Joschko said.
However, he said that although the creation of the act was in good intentions, what has followed has not always been in alignment with the original purpose of the Clery Act.
“I think [the Clery Act] paints a picture, but the facts and circumstances surrounding the numbers aren’t there,” he said. “[The reports] certainly do provide a snapshot of the campus, and I think that’s helpful. Based off of the [Clery Act], you can see trends and patterns emerge. However, I think it’s difficult to try and take all of these institutions that are so very different and try and compare them. I think it’s very dangerous to do that.”
Joschko said a safety report of all statistics with a lack of context could cause confusion and severe misunderstanding.
“There are articles out there – especially from practitioners like myself and other police chiefs – that speak to [the lack of context],” he said. “[These articles] say this [report] is a dangerous way to say ‘this campus is safe or that campus is not safe,’ taking only those crimes into account.”
While the revisions and new categories have already been implemented for the 2013-2014 report, Joschko said rulemaking negotiations have been going on all summer, working to develop the proper interpretation of the new categories. Currently, BUPD officers are reporting crimes that would fall under the three new categories on a “good faith” model.
“The categories exist and the definitions exist,” Joschko said. “The counting application is where there isn’t a lot of guidance, and there will be guidance in the future. Right now, we made a ‘good faith’ effort, which is all that is legally required for us to do for this year because the negotiating rulemaking session was not final.”
The role of the three negotiated rulemaking sessions was to go beyond simple word definitions to outline procedures of reporting and act as a means of interpretation for officers. The report’s release date has not been announced; however, Joschko said a Nov. 1 release is a possibility.
“I’m hoping there will be better clarification on [definitions and reporting procedures] once the negotiated rulemaking comes out,” Joschko said. “It’s a big caveat because these reports already happened and were already categorized long before the law became the law, and so we had to go back and hand count those reports. We made a ‘good faith’ effort.”
To read the full report, visit bradley.edu/police.
