Crime Data and Analysis

Violent Crime Rates, 2000-02
Rate per 10,000 students enrolled

Violent Crime =
   Murder[n1] + Forcible Sex Offenses[n2] + Robbery + Aggravated Assault[n3]

Years included:
   2000 + 2001 + 2002

Geographic Areas included[n4]:
   On-Campus + Non-Campus + ( Public-Property / 2 )

Violent Crime Rate
   = ( Criminal Offenses Reported ) / [ ( Students Enrolled ) / 10,000 ]

Note 1. “Murder” includes non-negligent manslaughter.  No institution reported more than a single incident during 2000-02.

Note 2. All forcible sex offenses reported as having taken place within an on-campus residence hall are excluded, on account of gross differences in reporting rates among universities with different victim-support policies.

Note 3. “Aggravated assault” typically indicates use of a weapon.

Note 4. The number of criminal offenses reported as having taken place on public property within or immediately adjacent to a university’s campus is divided by 2, on the arbitrary presumption that half of the victims of violent crime in such areas are nonstudents.

* The number of criminal offenses reported as having taken place on public property within or immediately adjacent to Harvard University’s campuses is divided by 4 (rather than by 2).  Some such adjustment is necessary in order to make allowance for the HUPD’s relative overreporting of off-campus crime.

Number of students enrolled—
Penn: 23,240.  Harvard: 24,850.  Yale: 11,470.  MIT: 10,340.  Chicago: 13,890.  Columbia (including Teachers Coll.): 26,350.

Statistical data source: United States, Dept. of Educ., Office of Postsecondary Educ., “Criminal Offenses,” OPE Campus Security Statistics, Nov. 2003, <http://ope.ed.gov/security/Search.asp>.

. . . . . . . .

The crime data that each school provides to the Department of Education can be used to make valid risk comparisons.  [Source: ---, ---, Office of Postsecondary Education, Campus Crime and Security at Postsecondary Education Institutions, <http://ope.ed.gov/security/>.]  The schools must have similar institutional characteristics, as they do in the case of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Penn, and Yale:

      type of institution  =  private 4-year university
      percent of students in campus housing  =  25% or more
      metropolitan status  =  large city
      institutional size (enrollment)  =  10,000 or more students

The most significant institutional characteristics for campus crime comparisons are discussed in a Statistical Analysis Report published by the National Center for Education Statistics (---, ---, Inst. of Educ. Sciences, Natl. Center for Educ. Statistics, Campus Crime and Security at Postsecondary Education Institutions, by Laurie Lewis and Elizabeth Farris, Jan. 1997, <http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/97402.pdf> 5-8).  The NCES “is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education.”

In its annual compilation of criminal offenses, every university is required by the U.S. Department of Education to include the number of criminal offenses reported in a geographically limited public property area, specifically: “all public property, including thoroughfares, streets, sidewalks, and parking facilities, that is within the campus, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus” (emphasis added).  Source: ---, ---, Office of Postsecondary Educ., “Public Property,” Glossary, Nov. 2003, <http://ope.ed.gov/security/glossary.asp>.