It may seem like the number of Campus Crime Alerts at Miami University has drastically increased this year, but according to officials, it is hard to say if there actually have been more, or if this is due to stricter guidelines for issuing the alerts.
"It's hard to say if we've issued more alerts this year than we would have done in past years if we applied the same guidelines that we're applying this year," Lt. Andrew Powers of the Miami University Police Department (MUPD) said.
According to Powers, one change involves burglaries. In the past, a Campus Crime Alert was only issued if someone was home at the time of the burglary, but now the police department has expanded that to include burglaries when no one was home.
"For the most part, though, we issue crime alerts in situations where there is an unidentified suspect who's still at large and represents an ongoing threat to the safety of our community," Powers said.
According to Claire Wagner, director of the news and public information office, there have been eight campus crime alerts so far this semester. This relates to seven in the entire 2004-05 academic year, five in 2005-06 and eight in 2006-07.
Powers said that on average Miami sees about six to 10 crime alerts each school year.
According to Powers, the crime alerts are issued in part to satisfy the Campus Security Act and the guidelines of the Clery Act, which is constantly being reinterpreted.
"Based on advice of our legal counsel from reviewing some recent audits and evaluations of Clery compliance procedures it was determined that (expanding the guidelines for Campus Crime Alerts) was an appropriate thing to do," Powers said.
Wagner agreed that this year's addition of Campus Crime Alerts for burglaries even when no one is home is due to the review of the criteria of the Clery Act.
Powers added that burglaries are more serious if someone is breaking into a residential space, even if no one is home, because the potential for danger is there.
"It's a matter of making sure that people are aware of things that could affect them," Powers said.
Wagner said that she does not feel pressure to report more crime alerts and the reason Miami is reporting more is to be compliance with the Clery Act.
According to Richard Nault, vice president for student affairs, Miami has an institutional response team that looks at an emergency and decides what the institution should do about the situation.
Wagner said that the first criteria for a situation that warrants a crime alert is a potential threat to safety in the community.
She added that the Clery Act has a list of crimes that universities are supposed to respond to.
Alison Kiss, program director of Security on Campus, Inc., said the Clery Act mandates several things.
According to Kiss, the Clery Act mandates that a timely warning be issued if there is a current or ongoing threat to students. It also requires universities to publish an annual security report, including three years of crime statistics and campus policies on how they issue warnings, what to do if a student is a victim of crime and the school's drug and alcohol policy. Universities must also have a public crime log.
The MPUD has a public log of all reported criminal activity, not just situations that warrant campus crime alerts, for the current academic year on its Web site.
Kiss said that the Clery Act also requires schools to give certain rights to sexual assault victims, which is referred to outside of the law as the campus sexual assault victim's bill of rights.
Powers said that another purpose of crime alerts is to potentially generate leads and information that could help the police close cases, which has happened in the past.
According to Wagner, Miami's Campus Crime Alert e-mails go out to students, faculty and staff.
"We try to get (the alert) out within a day to a day and a half that we have all the information," Wagner said.
Kiss said that she thinks some of the increase of Campus Crime Alerts on college campuses is reactionary to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University shootings.
"In terms of alerting their campus, there was a lag," Kiss said. "So I think that schools have really taken notice and have been more aware of providing their students with a warning if there is a current or ongoing threat on campus."
Kiss said that right now there is more discretion on what is considered a timely warning.
"We're looking in terms of a large threat to campus, for example a shooter on a college campus, that schools issue a warning in 30 minutes or less," Kiss said.
Kiss said that increased crime alerts are beneficial.
"Anything that keeps students on the alert and aware … only helps protect the community," Kiss said.
Wagner said she hopes students read all of the crime alerts so that they realize that there are some things going on and lock their doors and be aware.
"We can never stress safety enough," Wagner said.
