10 Things Campus Security Won't Tell You
Updated and adapted from the book "1,001 Things They Won't Tell You: An Insider's Guide to Spending, Saving, and Living Wisely," by Jonathan Dahl and the editors of SmartMoney.
http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/10-things-campus-security-wont-tell-you-21781/?page=all1. "Safety might not be first -- at least when it comes to the budget."
In the wake of the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech, safety measures at some college campuses have improved, from new online emergency notification systems to beefed-up security for dorms and more shuttle vans for student transportation. But schools still have a way to go, says S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy at Security on Campus, Inc., a nonprofit that focuses on crime prevention and victim assistance in college and university communities.
"In the last three years, we have seen some fundamental change, but it's still not the most popular thing for institutions to spend their money on," says Carter. To improve security on campus, most universities and colleges need additional funding from the federal government, says Phillip Johnson, president elect of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) and director of security and police at the University of Notre Dame. For some institutions, that's likely to occur later this year when the Department of Education distributes around $9 million in competitive grants for emergency management to the schools that have already applied.
2. "There's crime here, but you'll have to ask to find out."
Eleven murders occurred on public and private nonprofit college campuses in 2008, down from 44 in 2007, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education's Campus Security Data Analysis. In 2008, there were also more than 24,600 burglaries, more than 2,400 sexual offenses and nearly 3,000 car thefts.
The amount of information and details that you can get about such instances depends on the school. Typically, students enrolled in public colleges or universities can use the state's open record law to get records of criminal incidents from law enforcement agencies, including college campus police, says Mike Hiestand, consulting attorney to the Student Law Press Center. Unless it's an ongoing investigation, the report should include the name of the perpetrator and information about the crime and where it occurred.
Students at private universities will have to use the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (named after a student Jeanne Clery who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986) to retrieve information about campus crimes. The Clery Act applies at every college and university that receives federal funding, including work study aid and Pell grants, which is the case for around 99% of them, says Hiestand. This law, however, requires only a limited amount of information be made publicly available, which is typically less than what's divulged under the open state law.
3. "Our reports might be incomplete."
Despite the laws in place, it can still be hard to get a clear picture of the crimes that occur on campus. Close to 80% of schools submit the annual security report that's required by the Clery Act to the Department of Education, and more than two-thirds of them include their crime statistics in their report.
Yet, it's common for students to not report that they've been a victim of a crime to their campus police department. For example, less than 5% of completed and attempted rapes are reported to campus officials or law enforcement, according to the National Institute of Justice. This is usually because victims feel embarrassed, don't understand the legal definition of rape or don't want to identify the perpetrator if it's someone they know, says Bonnie Fisher, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati and co-author of "Unsafe in the Ivory Tower: The Sexual Victimization of College Women."
In order for crime reporting to increase, two things need to happen: Students need to feel comfortable coming forward about the crime and schools need to train counselors to help empower victims, says Carter.
4. "Off campus means off our radar."
College students know the perks to living off campus, including more freedom and less oversight from the university. But these advantages can also make living off campus dangerous. "Students and parents need to be aware that crime happens on every campus but by and large colleges and universities create something of a bubble around their on-campus students," says Carter. "When you step outside of the bubble, you face a broader array of threats that you need to be mindful of."
Students should find out if the campus police department has primary jurisdiction over the area where they're living, he says. In most cases, private property not owned by the school -- whether the apartment is 10 steps or 10 miles from campus -- absolves the college of security obligations. Also, most colleges do provide a cursory safety talk during orientation. And students should take their own precautionary measures, in particular speaking with their landlords to make sure they have top security with locks, alarms and adequate lighting.
5. "We're not fully equipped for a crisis . . ."
For better or worse, the potential for large-scale disaster is part of the public consciousness. While schools are mindful to examine and revamp safety measures, the nature of emergency preparation can sometimes be reactionary rather than preemptive, says John McNall, president of BowMac Educational Services.
Administrators have realized for a long time that they need to upgrade emergency plans, McNall says; the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 were certainly another "'it can happen here' wake-up call." In the past few years, many universities have developed better mass-notification systems, such as text messaging or email, and public address systems, but for others there is room for improvement, says Johnson of IACLEA.
6. ". . . let alone a terrorist attack."
Universities don't get money for terrorism prevention directly from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Instead, DHS provides training and other resources that universities can access. In addition, it awards funding to state administrative agencies, which can then dole out the funds to local jurisdictions as they see fit, often leaving little for college law enforcement. Yet, in the past few years, the DHS has stepped up its efforts with universities, a spokesperson says. For example, in 2006, a Mississippi Office of Homeland Security grant helped the University of Southern Mississippi create a Center for Spectator Sports Security Management, which focuses on preventing terrorist activities at sports events.
What kind of funding is available for schools? Not much. California, for instance, received over $106 million during fiscal year 2009 from DHS. Of that, just $1.16 million was paid out to the state's three largest public schools: California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California. A spokesman for the California Emergency Management Agency says the sums are set by DHS and allocations in part are directed by Congress. He adds that the money that goes to the counties and cities "is also used to help bolster school and community safety."
7. "Sexual assaults and rapes on campus aren't uncommon."
During their college years, about 3% of female students become victims of either a completed or attempted rape, according to the National Institute of Justice. Meanwhile, one in eight female students will be stalked during that time, says the University of Cincinnati's Fisher. She says few schools go the distance in training campus police to help stalking victims or have enough budgeted for adequate protection.
But Johnson of IACLEA says schools continue to improve on-campus security measures through crime prevention programs and in part by creating threat assessment and case management groups to spot people with behavioral concerns who are disturbing others on campus.
The laws currently in place require disclosure of basic information about sexual assaults that happen on campus. In April, Security on Campus proposed the Campus Sexual Assault Free Environment Blueprint that would add to the Clery Act. The proposal calls for annual reports citing the number of student sexual assault hearings and their outcomes.
8. "We're trained to protect the students -- but not their identities."
So far this year, at least five colleges have experienced data breaches where hackers stole students' personal information, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. Parents should ask a college about how their child's identity is being protected. Students are especially vulnerable when schools use Social Security numbers for identification purposes rather than issuing a separate student identification number, says a Linda Foley, founder of the ITRC. "You should only have to give a school your Social Security number for financial aid and maybe once to admissions, that's it," Foley says.
Among the incidents in which hardware was stolen for its contents, the most common on campus targets were financial aid and professors' offices and laptops stolen from cars, she says. Campus police, chancellors and deans take this matter seriously, but many schools have yet to establish policies about information privacy, she says.
9. "Your kid may be back next year, but we won't."
Retaining campus police staff remains a problem at many institutions, says Johnson. In some cases, sworn campus officers, who have the same training and authority as state police, often leave colleges and universities to work for local law enforcement. Compensation is likely the biggest reason for turnover. Municipal cops receive higher pay than their campus counterparts. Currently, the median salary for state and local police officers is $47,700, while college and university cops earn $37,000, according to compensation data provider PayScale.
A high turnover rate can adversely affect the quality of safety and campus life since a new officer could be less familiar with the student body and on-campus procedures than a seasoned veteran. High turnover isn't the case across the board, however, says Johnson, who adds that there's less of a turnover at the University of Notre Dame in part because of their competitive pay and benefits.
10. "Not all security officers are created equal."
Private colleges and universities tend to have more security officers than public schools and sworn campus officers usually go through more extensive background checks and training than non-sworn officers, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
"Among schools with 5,000 or more students, private campuses had more law enforcement employees per capita than public campuses," according to a report by the Bureau. Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of campus law enforcement agencies on four-year campuses with at least 2,500 students use sworn officers -- and they tend to go through a more thorough criminal and background record check than non-sworn officers, according to the report.
But it's difficult to compare security measures and precautions taken at higher education schools since many factors including whether it's a private or public school, its size and its location determine the type of security that's needed. "You have to be very careful about generalizing higher education security issues across the board," says Johnson. Although many campuses face the same security issues (e.g., substance abuse, gender violence), location can play a big role since the needs of a campus in an urban city environment can be quite different than those of a campus near the cornfields, says Carter.
