One forcible sex offense, three aggravated assaults and three burglaries. That is the number of times those crimes occurred on Quinnipiac University’s campus in 2011. It is also the kind of information that can be found in the the Quinnipiac University Clery Report.
Federal law requires all federally-funded universities and colleges to have a Clery Report. This log documents all crimes that occur on campus over a three-year period.
Information in Quinnipiac’s three-year Clery Report may present any continuing problems. Chief of Public Safety David Barger believes that the major problem on Quinnipiac’s campuses has to do with drug and alcohol-related issues. He does not think that it is a problem unique to Quinnipiac, but one that is common at many other universities.
Information in the Clery Report shows a steady increase in disciplinary referrals for drug-related violations at Quinnipiac. There were 32 cases in 2009, 66 in 2010 and 147 in 2011.
It also shows disciplinary referrals for liquor law violations. In the past three years, Quinnipiac has had 1,802 violations of the liquor law.
Quinnipiac’s Department of Public Safety keeps brochures documenting this information, as well as other crimes that have occurred on campus over the past three years. A large binder in the Public Safety office shows what crimes have occurred in the previous 60 days. This binder also shows all crimes since the beginning of the fall semester.
“You look and say,‘wow this is 75 pages’ but you would go to another campus and it might be double that,” Barger said.
The Clery Report is beneficial because it allows for Public Safety officials to see what trends are developing throughout the student body on a yearly basis, Barger said.
“It’s only in number so we have to look into that number and try to extrapolate from that number what the problem is or what the trend is,” Barger said. “But at least it gives us something to start out with.”
The information also allows Quinnipiac to compare itself to other schools to see what kinds of common themes are happening. These themes may be either good or bad.
With this information, Public Safety officials are then able to investigate why the numbers are how they are.
“Are the high schools preparing you for the SATs but not substance abuse? It allows us to look beyond the university and sort of take in the picture as a whole,” Barger said.
The report is not just for Public Safety though, it has other uses, Barger said. It is useful to the entire Quinnipiac community as a whole. Students, as well as parents, are entitled to view the Clery Report log book and brochures with statistics about the previous three years.
“It’s not just a report on crime,” Barger said. “It’s a consumer tool.”
