U. doubts merit of crime bill

While officials concede the need for accurate crime-reporting, they wonder if the new law will really help. A new federal law designed to make colleges safer by giving students and prospective students a fuller picture of campus crime will probably fail to accomplish its goals, University officials maintain. The law -- part of the far-reaching Higher Education Act which President Clinton signed into law last Wednesday -- seeks to expand what crimes colleges and universities must report to its students and the federal government. In the past, schools could claim that many campus crimes occurred in places that were technically "off campus," as defined by a 1990 law. Earlier this year, a year-long U.S. Department of Education investigation cleared Penn of charges that it was intentionally underreporting campus crime statistics. The new law attempts to close that loophole by requiring colleges and universities to report crimes that happen in areas designated as "noncampus," like fraternity houses or other buildings used by student organizations, and "public property," which includes streets and sidewalks running through campus. Proponents of the law say it will make current students more knowledgeable about campus crime and thus better able to protect themselves, while enabling prospective students to make an informed decision about where to go to school. Penn's top crime-fighting official, however, said that while he agrees with "the concept of crime-reporting," the new bill probably won't make campuses safer. "Crime reporting is important and ought to continue," said University Vice President for Public Safety Tom Seamon. "I just think that this legislation, an effort to make the original bill better, may have the opposite effect." He explained that the law will now require the University "to devote personnel and money in equipment to do the crime reporting," resources that could otherwise be used to fight crime directly. But Daniel Carter, the vice-president of Security On Campus Inc., a non-profit group that lobbied extensively for the new legislation, termed that argument "a bogus criticism." "The reporting burdens are not that much higher," he said, adding that the information should be at hand anyway because "you can't adequately assign your campus security resources if you don't know what's going on or what's happening." And John Ullyot, deputy chief of staff to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the law's sponsor, said the crime-reporting is "a worthwhile endeavor? even if it increases the effort." "It does increase the burden on the university," Ullyot said. "But that doesn't necessarily have to come out of the portion of the budget that the university places on maintaining a secure campus." Seamon also questioned whether students review crime statistics at all, saying that perceptions of safety are based more on a few major but largely unavoidable random crimes -- like shootings -- than on everyday thefts and burglaries. But Ullyot disagreed. "Having accurate statistics, giving students and their families the most accurate picture possible, enables those students and their families? to make the right decisions about how best to protect themselves against such crimes," he said. Seamon also questioned the vagueness of the term "reasonably contiguous," which the bill uses as a test to determine whether property is close enough to the main campus to be classified as non-campus or public property. "What does that mean?" he asked, adding that he has asked the University's Office of the General Counsel for guidance, and hopes to get clarification from the DOE. Carter responded that Congress was simply "trying to leave some degree of reasonableness." "If the schools just employ an honest, straightforward, reasonable approach, I don't think there will be a problem," he said. In the past, Carter said, schools used a "dishonest and deceitful" approach to reporting crime -- especially at Penn. "Penn definitely was deceitful," Carter said. "They were exploiting the fine line letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law." Charles Masten, an analyst for the DOE who has worked on the campus crime issue, said the department will spend the next several months writing rules and regulations for how the law is to be followed. Those directives, he said, will "get more down to the nuts and bolts of how this translates to practical directions" than does the actual legislation. The rules will define "reasonably contiguous." Masten said DOE officials will consult with college students and administrators to get their input on how to properly enforce the law. Also, since the new law explicitly gives the government the right to fine schools who are not in compliance, the DOE may take a more forceful approach to enforcing the law, which critics -- including Carter -- have said it failed to do in the past. "We are certainly committed to ensuring that college campuses are safe and that schools are complying with the letter and the spirit of the law," Masten said. University officials lobbied both publicly and privately with Specter to change some aspects of his bill. One change recommended by Penn officials -- including University President Judith Rodin -- was that the law should have different requirements for schools based on their size and location. "Many rural schools don't have city streets running through them and they have much more articulated boundaries," Rodin said. "Penn was designed exactly the opposite, [so as to] welcome the community." Carter conceded that there are differences between different schools, but said he thought putting such a distinction in the law would make it too difficult for students or prospective students to compare the statistics from different schools. The new law will likely not affect how Penn reports crime to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Seamon said that the state law does not specifically define campus, and that the University has always used the federal definition. Officials have not yet decided whether to change that, he said.