Congress aims at loopholes in campus crime reporting law

If a Penn student is robbed outside the food court at 3401 Walnut Street, is it technically an on-campus crime? How about outside the Cinemagic movie theater near 40th and Walnut streets? Although most people consider those locations part of the Penn campus, the answer to both questions has long been "no." The culprit? A controversial federal law regulating how colleges report campus crime statistics to parents, students and the government. Under fire from critics both inside and outside the government, however, that law may soon change. Congress and the Senate passed legislation over the summer that would re-define what constitutes "on-campus crime." The changes could dramatically increase the amount of reported crime at urban schools like Penn. Crimes labeled as "off campus" do not have to be reported in the University's annual crime report, which is typically mailed to parents, students and the government. Only 10 percent of the robberies reported to the Penn Police in 1995 were designated as having occurred "on campus," according to a Philadelphia Inquirer story which sparked a federal government investigation. The U.S. Department of Education conducted a year-long review of the University's crime-reporting methods to determine if officials were illegally underreporting the crime rate. It found only a half-dozen minor violations of the original law, none related to the accusation that Penn broke the law by not reporting all of its "on-campus" crimes. Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus Inc., an advocacy group which has championed the new legislation and been a vociferous critic of the University, said this week that the revisions are necessary to eliminate any "chance of confusion." "There were too many schools not living up to the spirit and intent of the original campus security act," he said. "Many of the legislators originally thought that if they provided a general framework, [universities] would be honest. That has not turned out to be the case." The two versions of the bill -- which contain several inconsistencies and must be reconciled in a conference committee -- seek to close loopholes in the original Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990. The bills expand the definition of campus to include retail establishments, dormitories, streets, parking facilities and other buildings that are "reasonably contiguous" to the school. The legislation is part of Congress' all-encompassing higher education bill, which authorizes all federal student aid programs. The new law might also impose a penalty on schools for infractions, which the previous version did not do. Despite the fact that the government has found 63 schools in violation of the regulations, none has been penalized under the existing law. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) called the current execution of the law a "disservice to parents and students." "I believe it is preposterous to suggest that if a student fell victim to a crime, say on a sidewalk which he or she was using to get to class, that it would go unreported," the Penn alumnus said on the Senate floor May 20. Several Penn officials have gone on record with opposition to the new legislation. In a letter to Specter dated May 18, University President Judith Rodin said she is "concerned that the changes you propose to the definition of campus would greatly complicate what is already a confusing issue." Rodin said this week that Congress is "mislead[ing] itself if it thinks it can find a perfect definition that can suit all kinds of campuses." Instead, she suggested, the law could use different definitions of "on campus" for different types of schools, segmenting them by size and proximity to a city. "Whatever the law is, Penn will comply like it always has," Rodin stressed. Both versions of the bill would require campus police departments to maintain a public campus crime log that records all reported crimes. Penn's Division of Public Safety already keeps a public log. The House version of the law specifies that offenses handled by the campus disciplinary office be included in crime reports. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer Edward Sherwin contributed to this article.

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