Campus crime hits new low

The aggregate crime levels are also the lowest in more than a decade, according to crime data analyzed by The Daily Princetonian.

Director of Public Safety Paul Ominsky said the University remains a safe campus and the change in crime levels is not due to any new enforcement measures.

The report is a federally mandated measure that follows the Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities to keep a daily crime log and to disclose crime statistics every year by Oct. 1. The report, however, includes crimes not reported in the daily logs that are reported anonymously and crimes that come from other University offices.

The overall number of reported criminal offenses decreased from 53 in 2010 to 47 in 2011. Burglary, with 30 incidents, and aggravated assault, with one, remained constant. Motor vehicle theft and arson did not occur on campus during the reporting period. There were no instances of murder, negligent manslaughter, non-forcible sex offenses or robbery. Of those four offenses, only robbery has been registered on campus in the past 10 years.

There were no reported offenses at the University’s Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro.

The 56 judicial referrals for drug abuse violations in 2011, compared to 37 in 2010, refer to the number of individuals involved and not to the number of incidents recorded, Ominsky explained.

Two of the incidents involved seven students each; the remaining incidents all involved single students. Not including those two incidents, the number of referrals is only slightly higher than last year.

Judicial referrals are not criminally investigated by Public Safety and are not public records. Undergraduate student cases are investigated by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students. In order to comply with the Clery Act, Public Safety has to report these numbers in the annual crime report even though they are not actively investigated by the force.

“We may not follow up criminally,” Public Safety Director for Operations Stefanie Karp said, “but they do have to report the incidents to us, so we can track them. So there may not be an arrest.” The 56 alleged drug violators were processed through the campus judicial system.

Criminal arrests for drug abuse violations remained constant, with four cases.

According to Ominsky, marijuana use is included in the statistics for drug violations even though other drugs — including opium and cocaine — are explicitly mentioned in the report.

Forcible sex offenses increased from 13 in 2010 to 16 in 2011 but have not yet reached the 18 offenses registered in 2008, the highest in the past 11 years.

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The 16 sex offenses include reports given to other campus offices even though they may not have been directly investigated by Public Safety. The 16 offenses also include one report from 2010 and one from 2009. Karp declined to specify the initial source of the sexual offenses reported due to privacy reasons and in order to encourage students to continue reporting these offenses.