By Long Beach State’s Annual Campus Security Report, released Oct. 1, showed that some felonies have decreased in the past two years, namely liquor and drug law arrests.
The report is a mandatory annual release in conjunction with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crimes Statistics Act, which requires all federally-funded universities to release a report of crime statistics by Oct. 1.
The act is named after a 19-year-old Pennsylvania college student who was raped and murdered in her campus residence. Her parents called for a legislative reform after digging into the campus’ history and discovering a major lack of reporting in on-campus crime statistics.
“It allows the parents of prospective students when they’re looking at a university to send their kids to what kind of crime stats that campus has so they know what they’re getting into more than just, ‘Hey this is a nice campus,’ because there’s more to it than that,” University Police Department Lt. Richard Goodwin said. “With that, they’re able to make an educated decision on what to do.”
Sarah Vehrs | Daily 49er
From 2016 to 2017, Long Beach State, University of Southern California and San Diego State all decreased in motor vehicle thefts, while University of California, Los Angeles increased.
Many of the crime statistics for LBSU remained the same from the previous two years’ worth, with felonies such as rapes, robberies and burglaries remaining at about the same averages they have been at prior.
What the new report did reveal is that certain crimes that are commonly cited on college campuses have gone down some in the past year, with liquor law arrests dropping from nine percent in 2016 to zero percent last year and drug law arrests dropping 50 percent from eight in 2016 to four last year.
This establishes LBSU as having the lowest crime rates among any of the southern California campuses in these categories, with San Diego State ranking as the highest in both with 25 liquor law arrests and 65 drug law arrests.
While LBSU has seen a decrease in these crimes, sexual assault crimes on campus did see an influx in various categories, with four more rapes being reported last year than in 2016 and fondling rising from four in 2016 to 10 last year, but stalking reports dropped to zero from the 10 in 2016.
Sarah Vehrs | Daily 49er
From 2016 to 2017, Long Beach State and UC Los Angeles increased in reported rapes, while Univeristy of Southern California and San Diego State decreased.
Despite this increase, they are not the highest among the southern California college campuses, with University of California, Los Angeles having a 38 percent increase in these crimes, going from 42 reports of rapes and fondlings in 2016 to 58 last year, according to The Daily Bruin.
University of Southern California saw the second-highest rate of fondlings reported with 17 occurring last year, which while a decrease from the 28 reported in 2015 is still a relatively high number.
USC, SDSU and UCLA also lead the So Cal campuses in liquor law violations, with the first recording 689 violations last year, while SDSU had 669 and UCLA had 494.
LBSU recorded 365 liquor law violations last year, almost 100 more than the previous year, remaining the highest-reported crime on campus.
The one type of crime that has stayed at the same level for the past two years is motor vehicle thefts, which spiked to 20 thefts in 2016 and was followed by 19 in 2017. However, despite the larger number of bike thefts per year than motor vehicle, they do not appear on Clery reports, which Goodwin states is due to what the Clery Act classifies as a reportable crime.
