The Division of Public Safety changed its crime reporting policy to only report incidence rather than monthly trending of crime rates to the general public.
With this change, members of the Penn community will have access to information on the incidence of crimes per month, not the percentage change in crime rates from month to month.
“I don’t think it means much to people if we say there is a two-percent increase in crime one month over another,” Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush explained. “People want to know, ‘How safe am I today?’”
Rush cited the changing dynamics of the West Philadelphia area as the reason for this policy change.
“This particular University City area has been transformed over the years — more people, more restaurants, more retailers,” she said.
Stating crime statistics alone without qualifying them with information about the changing environment in Philadelphia — that may be increasingly susceptible to crime — may misrepresent the data, Rush added.
According to Rush, the need to place statistics within a context became clear after speaking to students visiting campus five to ten years after graduating.
“Most Penn alums were tickled by the dramatic change” in how safe the area has become, Rush said, adding that analyzing trends in crime data alone would not evoke a similar reaction.
DPS is currently working with professors and other academics to develop models to accurately represent current crime statistics.
DPS will continue to report trending analyses of crime rates to the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies under the federal Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act , which establishes protocol for crime reporting for college campuses nationwide.
