Campus Crime – Victims' Rights Week Information

From Jack Reilley 

Our daughter, Robbin Brandley, was murdered on a college campus parking lot. The campus was dangerous. Students, faculty and employees were frightened to walk the campus at night. The campus was poorly lighted and the security guards were few and under trained.  

After Robbin’s murder, we met Connie and Howard Clery whose daughter, Jeanne, was viciously murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986. The Clery’s formed Security On Campus, a national organization dedicated to making every college campus, large and small, a safe, crime free environment for our children, for all students, faculty and employees. We are proud to have known and worked with Howard and Connie, both victim champions. God bless them!
 
The California legislature passed our state’s version of the national Security On Campus law after some resistance. We are pleased that California’s universities, state universities and community colleges are complying with, and supporting, the law. The law applies to organizations receiving federal or state funds of any kind.
 
Below is information about campus crime. It comes from the 2009 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Resource Guide, developed by the National Center for Victims of Crime in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime (OVC) 
 
SEVEN STATISTICS ABOUT CAMPUS CRIME
1.    IN 2007, 88,040 CRIMES WERE REPORTED TO POLICE ON COLLEGES CAMPUSES.
2.    AN ESTIMATED 12% OF WOMEN CURRENTLY ATTENDING AMERICAN COLLEGES HAVE BEEN RAPED.
3.    VICTIMS OF RAPE OR SEXUAL ASSAULT WERE ABOUT 4X MORE LIKELY TO BE VICTIMIZED BY SOMEONE THEY KNEW THAN BY A STRANGER.
4.    IN 2006, THERE WERE 17,602 ALCOHOL-RELATED CRASH FATALITIES.
5.    MALE COLLEGE STUDENTS WERE ABOUT 2X AS LIKELY TO BE VICTIMS OF OVERALL VIOLENCE THAN FEMALE STUDENTS.
6.    A SURVEY OF UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADS REVEALED THAT 20% HAD BEEN STALKED OR  HARASSED BY A FORMER DATING PARTNER.
7.    MOST CRIMES AGAINST STUDENTS – 93% – OCCURED OFF CAMPUS; OF THOSE, 72%  OCCURED AT NIGHT. 
 
If you are sending your children to college, or plan to go to college yourself, ask campus officials for the printed information each campus must provide to students, their parents and the public about the crime conditions on their campus and the off-campus student living areas.