Web Site To Offer Campus Crime Stats

DENVER (AP) â€” A new federal Web site will offer crime statistics from 6,700 colleges and universities â€” as soon as half the schools submit the figures. <br><br>The Tuesday deadline for schools to report

Wednesday, October 25th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

DENVER (AP) â€” A new federal Web site will offer crime statistics from 6,700 colleges and universities â€” as soon as half the schools submit the figures.

The Tuesday deadline for schools to report campus crime statistics to the Department of Education Web site was extended by a week after the site crashed. Most schools tried to send the data in at the last minute.

As of Thursday, figures for 3,380 schools were posted.

While many colleges and universities already include crime statistics on their own Web sites, the federal site allows comparisons in three dozen categories through the end of 1999.

The Web site is the product of a law passed after the 1986 murder of 19-year-old Jeanne Clery, a student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Fellow student Joseph M. Henry, who entered the dorm through security doors propped open by pizza boxes, was convicted and sentenced to death.

Clery's parents later learned that 38 violent crimes had not been made public in the three years before her death.

The original law required campuses to compile annual reports of campus crimes, but the rules were toughened and each unreported crime now can draw a fine of $25,000.

Campus police leaders supported the original law but say the amendments have bogged down their departments in data reporting.

``These unfunded mandates divert money and time away from our primary purpose of fighting crime,'' said Jim Fadenrecht, police chief at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Fadenrecht also complained that the Education Department doesn't present crime statistics in a per-capita format, making comparisons difficult.

To check the crime stats at the college of your choice, click here.