Burglaries and robberies at Duke declined sharply from years past, according to the 2003 crime statistics in Duke's annual Clery Report.
Burglaries and robberies on Duke’s residential campuses and at Duke University Medical Center declined sharply from years past, according to the 2003 crime statistics in Duke’s Clery Report, a compendium of crime statistics that federal law requires universities to release annually.
The report includes both successful and failed attempts of crime on University property. In 2001, there were 66 burglaries reported at Duke, with 46 in residential campus buildings. Sixty-four burglaries were reported in 2002. In 2003, however, the number dropped to 37. Similarly, there were only five robberies in 2003, compared to 10 such crimes in 2001.
“There’s a lot of factors that have an impact on crime statistics,” said Maj. Phyllis Cooper, a spokesperson for they Duke University Police Department. “There’s really no way to explain why crime goes up and down.”
There were seven reported aggravated assaults on campus in 2003, a drop from 15 the year before. The only major offense that increased in 2003 was motor vehicle thefts, which increased from eight to 11.
Duke had no cases of murder, non-forcible sex offenses, hate crimes or arson in 2003, but there were six forcible sex offenses reported.
The report includes both arrests by DUPD and referrals of potential law infractions from the Dean of Students’ office for offenses such as liquor and drug violations. 2003 saw 21 arrests and 306 referrals for liquor law violations. In 2002 there were a total of 377 liquor violations—an increase from 232 in 2001.
“Law enforcement is not the only enforcement of alcohol policy on campus,” Cooper said. “We are working to make students more aware of the decisions they make—we feel like enforcement isn’t the answer to solve these problems.”
There were 12 arrests and 20 referrals for drug violations in 2003, down from a total of 70 in 2002.
Stephen Bryan, assistant dean of students, questioned the validity of the statistics, noting that the Clery Report numbers reflect all cases in which DUPD was involved and include referrals that were not crimes or violations. He also noted that the numbers, which are calculated by the calendar year, are different from the University’s figures, which are based on the academic calendar. Bryan said this difference can make it difficult to understand the impact changing University policies have on these statistics.
“I don’t know really how much to put in those numbers,” Bryan said, noting that Duke uses different set of information to tabulate University policy violations. “The Clery Report is a much broader number of referrals than we use.”
Bryan said it was hard to gauge trends in violations from year to year, but some University policy and enforcement may have had impact on statistics, significantly raising the number of alcohol and drug violations from 2001 to 2002.
“Where I do see an increase is when the [residence coordinators] came aboard in July 2002,” he said, noting the heightened degree of administrative scrutiny in residential halls in recent years. Statistics bear this out, as 2002 saw similar or increased numbers in reported incidents of almost every type of violation.
The Clery Report is federally required by the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, which forces any college receiving federal student financial aid funding to disclose data about crime at and around their campuses. It was named for Jeanne Clery, the 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986.
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