A story by NPR about rape on college campuses sheds some new light on the most recent crime statistics reported by UCLA.
Back in January, we found in a quick analysis of campus crime reports that UCLA had the highest reported rate of sexual assaults, on or near campus, of any of the UC schools.
In 2008, UCLA reported 36 sexual assaults – about 0.94 assaults per 1,000 students. The second-highest reported rate came from UC Davis, with 0.75 assaults per 1,000 students.
In fact, UCLA's rate was higher than many other campuses of similar size, NPR reported yesterday.
Yet a national nonprofit recently gave UCLA's director of police community services, Nancy Greenstein, an award for innovative approaches to complying with federal reporting requirements and sexual assault victim assistance, NPR reports.
The award came from Security on Campus, which focuses on preventing crime on college campuses. The organization was founded by the parents of Jeanne Clery, who was raped and killed in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986. A federal law passed in her name requires campuses to report crimes to the public.
NPR talked to Security on Campus public policy director Daniel Carter about possible reasons why UCLA had a higher reported sexual assault rate:
(UCLA), in its annual Clery report, shows more sexual assaults than many other schools the same size. At first, that makes it seem like UCLA is unsafe. But Carter says Greenstein was honored for creating a place where women feel comfortable going to police, and so more of them come forward to report a sexual assault.
Greenstein says the campus police, administration and student groups have increased efforts at prevention. And one of the most effective programs gets students talking to other students about the risks of drinking and rape, and the meaning of consent.
'You don't want any students to be harmed,' she says of sexual assault. 'It changes people's lives. So many students who have been victimized, in a sense they're never the same. And if we can prevent that from happening ... if I can prevent one person from being victimized, then that's successful.'
The UCLA anecdote is just a small piece of NPR's story, done in conjunction with the Center for Public Integrity's exhaustive project on campus assault. The story found that colleges almost never expel men who are found responsible for sexual assault, and the U.S. Department of Education fails to aggressively monitor campuses' response to these assaults.
You can search for customized campus crime reports for hundreds of public and private colleges in California and other states using the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education's data analysis cutting tool.
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