THE EXTENT AND PATTERNS OF COMPLIANCE WITH THE CRIME AWARENESS AND CAMPUS SECURITY ACT OF 1990 AMONG POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS: A NATIONAL STUDY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AUGUST 1996
Chunmeng Lu, Ph.D.
Department of Political
Science
University of Cincinnati
Bonnie Fisher
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of
Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0375
Bonnie.Fisher@uc.edu
When Congress passed the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act in 1990 (20 USC 1092) (herein the Campus Security Act), its intent was to better inform the campus community about the incidence of campus crimes and the presence of security programs and policies by requiring post-secondary institutions that receive federal funds to publicly disclose such information. Congress designated the Department of Education (DOE) the authority to oversee the implementation of and compliance with the Campus Security Act. To date, however, the DOE has not conducted a compliance study and very few researchers have examined compliance with the Campus Security Act (see Fisher, 1995). Needless to say, academics and practitioners know little about the extent and patterns of compliance with the Campus Security Act.
This executive summary reports the findings from a national sample of two-year and four-year post-secondary institutions that began in the Fall 1994. There are four sections: introduction, research design and methods, findings, and references.
This section explains the following: (A) the sampling design, (B) the data collection and analysis process, (C) the two measures of compliance, and (D) the general characteristics of the sampled schools.
The Campus Security Act requires all two-year and four-year institutions
that receive federal student aid to comply with the mandates of the law.
According to the 1994 Peterson's Guide to Four-Year Colleges and
Peterson's Guide to Two-Year Colleges, there are a total of 3,218
post-secondary institutions in the nation in 1994 (Peterson's, 1994a, 1994b).
Although the DOE also publishes its own list of higher education institutions called the Directory of Post-Secondary Education Institutions, this study did not use it for several reasons. Most important, the most recent Department of Education directory listed only schools registered as of Fall of 1991 (Department of Education, 1992). The Peterson's Guides provided the most up-to-date information because we conducted the survey to collect data in 1993-94 academic school year. Moreover, the Peterson's Guides provide crucial information of institution level characteristics, such as the control (private vs. public) of a school, the type (two-year vs. four-year) of a school, and the enrollment size of a school. The DOE's Directory did not provide such information for each school. Therefore, the Peterson's Guides were chosen for their more extensive provision of institutional characteristics of colleges and universities.
Pridemore and Fisher (1995) applied the formula for a random sample to derive a sample size of 523 schools with a margin of error of +/- .04 (Mendenhall, Ott, and Scheaffer, 1971, p. 46) From a pilot study that examined the compliance of all post-secondary schools in Ohio, Pridemore, Fisher, and Lu (1994) found that close to two-thirds of the schools sent some form of information (application, security report, or both), and of these, only 67 percent sent copies of their annual security report. One-third of them did not even acknowledge the request letter by sending anything.
To take into account the possibility of a 50% non-response rate, an additional 262 schools were added to the sample, thus increasing the sample size to 785 schools. To obtain a random sample of 785 schools from the Peterson's Guide to Four-Year Colleges and Peterson's Guide to Two-Year Colleges, Pridemore generated a random listing of numbers of from one to 3218. She then pulled the names of 785 schools that had the corresponding random numbers in her random number list.
To examine compliance with the Campus Security Act, Pridemore, as a prospective transfer student, sent our 785 letters on October 18, 1994, to the randomly sampled schools and asked specifically for their respective annual campus security reports. The requested information began to arrive approximately five days after the mail-out date. Data collection stopped on March 18, 1995, approximately five months after she sent the request letter. To date, 683 of 785 schools selected have responded with some kind of information, which includes application packages, school bulletins, security reports, and videos.
The data analysis process entailed two stages. The first stage involved reading and coding what information each school sent. If a schools sent an annual security report, we read its content thoroughly and then coded the information according to our measures for compliance for each mandate (see below for details). We provide descriptive statistics below which summarize the distribution of the measures of compliance in the tables.
The second state entailed secondary data collection. We derived these data from secondary data sources available either in publication, electronic format, or CD-ROM. This data set contained mostly institutional-level characteristics of each school and was used to determine the characteristics of the sample and to perform bivariate and multivariate analyses that we do not present in this summary but are available upon request.
We measured compliance with the Campus Security Act in two ways: 1) what information schools sent in response to the initial request letter, and 2) the content of the information contained in the annual security report.
The first measure of compliance was whether or not a school responded to our letter that requested their respective annual security report and what they sent. Since the initial request letter asked for an application package (a student catalog and an application form) and the annual campus security report, this compliance measure has the following possible values:
Only the fourth and sixth conditions fulfill the requirement of full compliance, the rest of them are considered forms of noncompliance.
The second measure of compliance is the degree of compliance with each of the fourteen mandates in the Campus Security Act. Each of these mandates has a set of standard disclosure requirements outlined in the Campus Security Act. These disclosure requirements serve as the measurements to determine the degrees of compliance with each mandate. For example, the third mandate of the Campus Security Act (Sec. 485(a)(f)(C)(I)(ii), 20 USC 1092) requires institutions to reveal information regarding the campus law enforcement authority. The Campus Security Act requires that the annual report disclose the following information: (1) the authority of campus law enforcement to make arrests, (2) the working relationship between campus law enforcement and local police during a crime investigation, and (3) a statement to encourage community members to report crimes to law enforcement on campus promptly and accurately. Full compliance with this specific mandate means that the annual report must reveal information that fulfills the three requirements. We looked for evidence in the annual report to determine whether full compliance occurred. This means that in the annual report the schools must specifically state that the campus police can make an arrest, have constant contact with the local police force, and encourage crime victims to report incidents to the campus police immediately.
The disclosure requirements for each mandate are:
(1) In the statement of crime reporting procedures and facilities, the annual report must provide information regarding:
- Whom to call-any individual or office will be satisfactory to fulfill the requirement;
- The number to call;
- A statement regarding an institution's handling and processing of the call (such as a report to local police, or will inform campus police, or will page security to come); and
- The methods to inform the public of the crimes reported (e.g, mentioning of a special alert and/or fliers in public places to inform recent crimes).
(2) In the statement of security and access to campus facilities, the annual report must provide:
- Access limitation in terms of office hours and/or a lock-up time for campus buildings;
- Security mechanisms used in campus buildings such as locks or electronic surveillance monitors;
- Access limitation in terms of visit times and/or a lock-up time for residence halls; and
- Security mechanisms such as a card-entry system and/or a front office check-in used in residence halls; or to
- Indicate there is no on campus residence facilities.
(3) In the statement of campus security authority, the annual report must inform:
- The arrest authority possessed by the campus security force;
- The working relationship with local law enforcement authority; and
- The encouragement of prompt reporting criminal incidents to campus police.
(4) In the statement of security programs, the report must provide:
- The types; and
- Frequencies of program(s).
(5) In the statement of crime prevention programs, the report must provide:
- The types; and
- Frequencies of program(s).
(6) In the crime statistics, the report must provide statistics of
- Murders;
- Rapes;
- Sex offenses (divided into forcible and non-forcible after August 1, 1992);
- Robberies;
- Aggravated assaults;
- Burglaries; and
- Auto thefts.
(7) In the statement of of-campus monitoring and recording of criminal activity, the report must provide the mechanism to:
- Monitor through the local police; and
- Record through the local police; or
- Mention that the school does not have any off-campus organizations such as a sorority or a fraternity.
(8) In the violation statistics, the report must reveal arrest statistics for:
- Liquor law violations;
- Drug law violations; and
- Weapon possession violations.
(9) In the statement on alcohol policies, the report must provide:
- The school policy about alcohol consumption on campus;
- The enforcement of the state under-age drinking law; and
- Possible sanctions against violations.
(10) In the statement on drug policies, the report must provide:
- The school policy with regard to drug use on campus;
- The state and federal law authority about drug use; and
- Possible sanctions against violations.
(11) In the statement of drug or alcohol education programs, the report must provide:
- Types of alcohol education programs;
- Whom to contact (a number to call and/or the name of such organization);
- Types of drug education programs; and
- Whom to call (a number to call and/or the name of such organization).
(12) In the statement regarding campus sexual offenses, the report must reveal:
- The description of educational programs;
- To whom the offense should be reported;
- A number to call;
- The statement about the importance of preserving evidence, such as don't bathe, don't douche, don't throw away clothes, etc.;
- Information about proper law enforcement authorities in charge of investigations;
- A statement that institutional personnel will assist investigation, legal representation, etc.;
- Notification of counseling service available for victims (a number and/or the name of such organization);
- Notification that the institution will help change victim's academic and living arrangements;
- Notification of possible disciplinary action and hearing against the offender;
- Notification of equal presentation of both the victim and the accused;
- Notification of informed outcome to both the victim and the accused; and
- Possible sanctions may be imposed upon the offender.
(13) In the statement of informative methods, the report must mention:
- The format of the media; and
- Frequencies of the media to inform the availability of the annual report to the campus communities.
(14) In the crime statistics, the report must reveal information in:
- At least the period from August 1, 1991 to December 31, 1991;
- 1992 calendar year; and
- 1993 calendar year.
We coded each of the disclosure requirements in a yes/no format. A "yes" means the institution complied with that specific disclosure requirement for a specific mandate. For each "yes" coded the disclosure requirement got a value of one, otherwise zero.
The extent of compliance for each of fourteen mandates was obtained by adding all the points indicating compliance with the disclosure requirements. For example, the first mandate deals with the reporting procedure and facilities when a crime occurs on campus. The annual report must fulfill the following disclosure requirements: (1) whom to call, (2) the number to call, (3) the institution's handling and processing of the call, and (4) the methods used to inform the public of the incident. The degree of compliance with the first mandate by an institution was obtained by adding the points for each of the four disclosure requirements. The scale ranges from zero (no yes to all four requirements) to four (yes to all four requirements). Thus the measurement of compliance has a scale of a zero for noncompliance (no criteria was fulfilled), a one for minimal compliance (one of four criteria was presented), a two for moderate compliance (two of four presented, ) a three for better compliance (three of four presented), and a four for full compliance (all four presented). The advantage of this system is that compliance is measured by the degree of compliance and not solely by a simple dichotomy--compliance and noncompliance.
The selected schools in this study had a total student population of 3,718,391 in the 1993-94 academic year, which accounted for 24.3 percent of 15,333,371 students enrolled for that academic year. Seven hundred and eighty-five schools constituted 24.4 percent of all the post-secondary institutions in the United States for that academic year (Department of Education, 1995).
Fifty-one percent (n=400) of the schools were private ones and 48.5 percent (n=381) were public. Nearly 42 percent (n=327) of schools are two-year schools, and 58 percent of them (n=458) are four-year schools. The average enrollment was 4755 per school with a range of 43 to 52,771. More than four percent (n=33) of the schools had less than 200 students enrolled. More than nine percent (n=73) of the schools had enrollment between 200 to 499. Fourteen percent (n=111) of the schools had an enrollment between 500 to 999. Nearly twenty-seven percent (n=211) of the schools had an enrollment figure between 1,000 to 2,499. Eighteen percent (n=141) of the schools had an enrollment between 2,500 to 4,999. Almost fourteen percent (n=109) of the schools had 5,000 to 9,999 students. Close to nine percent (n=67) of the schools has 10,000 to 19,999 students. Three percent (n=23) of the schools had 20,000 to 29,999 students. Only about two percent (n=14) of the schools had more than 30,000 (Peterson's, 1994a, 1994b).
The results from our national-level compliance with the Campus Security Act study are shown in tables 1 and 2. As is evident, the degree of compliance with the Campus Security Act and its mandates varied considerably.
Campus Law Enforcement Journal (1995) "U.S. Department of Education Responds to Campus Security and Privacy Act Act Questions." May/June:9-36.
Congressional Record. June 5, 1990:H3119-H3127,
Congressional Record. January 24, 1996: H.R. 2416.
Department of Education (1995) Digest of Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Department of Education (1992) Directory of Postsecondary Institutions 1991-1992, Microfiche.
Fisher, Bonnie S. (1995) "Crime and Fear on Campus." The Annals of the American Academy, AAPSS, 539 (May): 85-101.
House Report 101-518 (1990) "Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act." U.S. House of Representatives. 101st Congress, 2nd Session.
Mendenhall, William; Ott, Lyman and Scheaffer, Richard L. (1971) Elementary Survey Sampling. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Inc..
Peterson's Guide to Four-Year Colleges 25th Ed. (1995a). Princeton, NJ: Peterson's Guides.
Peterson's Guide to Two-Year Colleges 25th Ed. (1995b). Princeton, NJ: Peterson's Guides.
Pridemore, Katherine; Fisher, Bonnie S.; and Lu, Chunmeng (1995) Extent and Quality of Compliance with the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act: A Pilot Study of Ohio's Four Year Colleges and Universities. Working Paper. University of Cincinnati.
Pridemore, Katherine and Fisher, Bonnie S. (1995) Extent and Quality of Compliance with the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act: A National Study. Paper presented at American Criminal Justice Sciences Conference in Boston, MA, March 7th to 11th, 1995.
U.S. Code: Congressional and Administrative News. 1990. Vol. 6: Legislative history. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co..
United States. House. Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education. Hearing on H.R. 3344. The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1989. 101st Cong., 2nd Sess. Washington, DC: U.S. GPO. 1990.
Type of response to section 688.47(a) |
Percent of schools |
| No response | 13.0 |
| Sent only an application package | 41.5 |
| Sent a letter that mentioned crime on campus | 1.0 |
| Sent catalog with annual security information enclosed in it | 3.7 |
| Sent either security information or crime statisitcs | 7.4 |
| Sent both security information and crime statistics | 33.4 |
this report is reprinted here by permission of the author and may be reproduced only for educational purposes; posted April 3, 1997