Quinnipiac University’s annual security and fire safety report revealed a slight increase in on-campus sexual violence in calendar year 2022.

University officials filed the report in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act, often referred to simply as the Clery Act.

Signed into law in 1990, the act is named for Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old first-year student at Lehigh University who was raped and murdered by another student in her on-campus dorm room in 1986. Following Clery’s murder, her parents lobbied lawmakers to pass federal legislation requiring all federally funded universities to report all crimes committed within their Clery geography.

Joe Dease, Quinnipiac’s Clery compliance officer and investigator, noted that the university’s Clery report details all crimes that occurred on the Mount Carmel, York Hill and North Haven campuses, as well as 86 off-campus properties.

Here’s an overview of the university’s most recent campus safety report:

There were no reported burglaries, robberies or motor vehicle thefts at Quinnipiac in 2022. There were also no murders, aggravated assaults or arsons last year.

However, Quinnipiac’s annual security and fire safety report revealed slight increases in rapes and sexual assaults in 2022.

Two rapes occurred in the university’s Clery geography between January and December 2022, up from one in 2021. Each of the six on-campus rapes reported since 2020 occurred in the Mount Carmel Campus student residences.

There were also three sexual assaults reported within Quinnipiac’s Clery geography in 2022 — as many as in 2020 and 2021 combined. Of the three sexual assaults, one occurred in a Mount Carmel Campus student residence, another occurred elsewhere on Quinnipiac’s main campus and the third occurred in a York Hill Campus student residence.

Tony Reyes, chief of public safety, cautioned that a spike in sexual violence could have many root causes.

“You may get a spike, not necessarily because we’re having more (sexual assaults) year over year, but that there might be a willingness to report more so than the previous year,” Reyes said, noting that the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported.

Reyes also emphasized the importance of education and awareness, noting that Public Safety’s community education tactics are designed to be “educationally based and really empowering to the victims.”

“Some of our complaints in terms of sexual assaults might be strangers, but some of them have to do with just sort of unwanted behavior among students,” Reyes said. “We really emphatically talk about that and highlight what acceptable behavior is and what it isn’t, and what we will tolerate and what we won’t.”

The Clery Act also requires universities to report violations of the Violence Against Women Act, including domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

There were no instances of domestic violence for the third consecutive year.

However, three reported incidents of dating violence — abuse that can take place only in a dating relationship — occurred on campus in 2022, up from one in 2021 and two in 2020. Two incidents occurred on the Mount Carmel Campus, while the other occurred on the York Hill Campus. All three occurred in student residences.

Although there were a combined 13 stalking incidents in 2020 and 2021, there were no reported cases in 2022.

The hate crime category of the annual security report includes simple assaults, larcenies, intimidations and vandalism. There was just one on-campus hate crime in 2022, a misdemeanor assault in a York Hill Campus residence.

The security report also revealed a notable decline in liquor law violations and drug offenses.

No students were arrested for liquor law violations within Quinnipiac’s Clery geography in 2022. Campus officials also saw a 17% decline in liquor law referrals between 2021 and 2022. Approximately 90% of the 422 violations occurred in on-campus student residences.

There were no drug offense arrests for the second consecutive year. The security filing reported 130 drug law violation referrals in 2022, a nearly 15% decline from 2021. Over 98% of the violations occurred in student residences.

Police arrested one student in a Mount Carmel Campus dorm hall on illegal weapons possession charges in 2022, the first such arrest in three years.

University officials also made one illegal weapons possession referral in a York Hill Campus residence in 2022.

Asked about the decline in liquor and drug law violations, Reyes argued “part of it could be organic.”

“I don’t want to take full credit for necessarily the decline,” he said.

However, Reyes said increased community education may have contributed to the overall decline, which occurred in the year after a Quinnipiac senior overdosed on fentanyl in his non-university owned off-campus residence.

“I think the sense is that we’re trying to be preventative,” Reyes said. “So, just trying to be proactive about having students think through some of these decisions beforehand may have had an impact on the decline.”