State proposes new campus crime reporting rules

It remains unclear how the regulations will affect the University's current crime reporting practices. While new campus crime reporting regulations approved last week by the Pennsylvania Board of Education mandate stricter definitions of campus boundaries, it is unclear how the regulations will affect University Police's daily crime reporting practices or definitions of "on-campus." The police -- defining "on campus" as University-owned or controlled properties -- reported 18 on-campus robberies in 1995. But internal police records show that the department received 188 additional reports of robberies throughout the year. This discrepancy -- as reported in the November 25 Philadelphia Inquirer -- prompted a federal investigation by the Department of Education into the University's reporting practices. Penn is the only school in the state whose practices are currently under investigation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office. University Police Lt. Joe Weaver, who handles the department's records, declined to comment on how the new regulations would affect reporting procedures until the additions are finalized -- which could be anywhere from eight to 18 months from now. Weaver emphasized, however, that University Police complies with the College and University Security Information Act of 1994, which mandates the department to report annual crime statistics to the state police. "The only thing I can tell you is that we will comply with whatever legislation is finalized," he said. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office is now examining an anonymous complaint that the University's annual crime report does not comply with the law. Spokesperson Jack Lewis noted that the Attorney General's office did not collaborate with the Education Department in developing the new regulations. "I think these new regulations are addressing some of the issues that we may have raised with the University on our own," he said, adding that the regulations "may to some degree make what we're looking at in the past a moot point." "We think it makes it clearer to the schools what they need to do," he said. "We feel other schools probably had the same problems." The next step in the regulatory process is review and approval by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, followed by submission to the education committees in the state legislature. Michele Haskins, a spokesperson for the commission, said the regulations should improve the accuracy of information reported annually to state authorities. Despite the fact that the regulations are still in their preliminary stages, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Eugene Hickok called them "an important step in ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of students and faculty at colleges and universities throughout the Commonwealth." The reporting practices also led alternative newspaper Philadelphia Weekly to name University President Judith Rodin one of its "Villains of '96." The paper questioned her explanation of why certain areas -- such as 40th and Walnut streets -- are considered "off campus."

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