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Abstract
When the Clery Act was passed in 1998, it required institutions of higher education to raise awareness among those in the campus community about the crime prevention programs they offer, as well as disseminate information about crime on campus, in an effort to reduce levels of individual risk. However, scant research investigates the impact that such institutional crime prevention efforts may have had on reports of both violent and property crime on campus. Using two different datasets, this study reveals that campuses with more security measures in place and more men enrolled than women are associated with the highest reports of violent crime. Alternatively, institutions with more security measures implemented and larger proportions of women enrolled have the fewest reports of violent crime on campus. This paper discusses the considerations that should be made when relying on official reports of crime on campus and concludes with implications for future research.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Robert Apel and Amarat Zaatut, along with the anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Criminal Justice Education, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Notes
1 A total of 546 colleges and universities were originally contacted for participation in this study, but 65 did not complete or return surveys. However, data from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) were used for 13 of these schools, producing a final sample size of 494 campuses.
2 The Department of Education does not collect data about larceny theft, except when such crimes occur in the context of a hate crime, meaning that there must be evidence that the theft was motivated by bias or hate. Thus, larceny theft is not included as a property crime in the analysis.