U. looks at crime reporting

A group of Penn officials are working to bring the University into compliance with new federal crime-reporting rules. Just what does it mean to be on Penn's campus? That's the question University officials are trying to answer as they work to bring Penn in line with a new federal campus security law that mandates how colleges and universities must report campus crime to the government. The new guidelines -- passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton last year -- closed a loophole in the original 1990 law that critics say allowed schools to substantially underreport their crime by claiming that incidents occurred in areas that were not part of campus. According to the new law, colleges must now go beyond reporting crimes that technically occur on campus and additionally cite in separate categories those incidents that take place on public streets that run through campus and in non-University-owned buildings that are primarily frequented by students. For Penn and other mainly urban schools without well-defined campus boundaries, crime-reporting laws have often been a source of difficulty and controversy, as it is often unclear where "campus" ends and whether incidents that occur on major streets and walkways that go through campus should be reported. Penn's reporting procedures were the subject of a year-long investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for allegedly illegally underreporting its crime. According to one newspaper report, the University reported just 10 percent of crimes to the DOE in 1995. The investigation, however, found only a half-dozen minor violations -- overall affirming Penn's methods of reporting crime. With the new law, Penn Vice President and General Counsel Peter Erichsen is taking steps to ensure that the next yearly crime report will be in compliance with state and federal guidelines. Each building on and around campus must be considered individually, Erichsen said, so the process of deciding how to report all of Penn's criminal incidents has been arduous and "consumed hundreds of person-hours, if not thousands." The Department of Education has supplied general requirements, but officials at each school must make their own decisions of under which category each building goes. The DOE has been unable to give specific guidelines to each school. "We don't have much guidance at all from the Department of Education," Erichsen said. "Eventually they will supply [the guidance]." As a result of the new, relatively vague legislation, a committee of eight to 10 members has been formed by the Office of the General Counsel to interpret the requirements set forth by Congress. A working group comprised of four members from the larger committee meets on a regular basis. The group, spearheaded by Erichsen, consists of employees from the Offices of the General Counsel, the Vice Provost for University Life and the Vice President for Government, Public and Community Affairs, as well as the Division of Public Safety. The committee, which meets every few weeks, is also addressing other issues that have arisen from the new law, including how to report student disciplinary problems. The 1999 federal crime report, which covers incidents occurring in 1998, is due to the DOE by September 1.

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