NCES Blog

National Center for Education Statistics

Crime and Safety on College Campuses

By Lauren Musu-Gillette

It is important for all students to feel safe at their schools and on their campuses. As one way to gauge the safety of college campuses, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Police and Campus Crime Statistics Act, known as the Clery Act, requires colleges participating in Title IV student financial aid programs to report certain data on campus crime. Since 1999, data on campus safety and security have been reported by institutions through the Campus Safety and Security Survey. Types of on-campus crime that institutions are required to report include: burglaries; forcible sex offenses; motor vehicle thefts; and aggravated assaults. Additionally, a 2008 amendment to the Clery Act requires institutions to report data on hate crime incidents on campus.

Overall, reports of crime on college campuses have decreased in recent years. In 2012, there were 29,500 criminal incidents against persons and property on campus at public and private 2-year and 4-year postsecondary institutions that were reported to police and security agencies, representing a 4 percent decrease from 2011. Looking at on-campus crime patterns over a longer period, the overall number of crimes reported between 2001 and 2012 decreased by 29 percent.

In terms of specific crimes, the number of on-campus crimes reported in 2012 was lower than in 2001 for every category except forcible sex offenses. The number of reported forcible sex crimes on campus increased from 2,200 in 2001 to 3,900 in 2012 (a 77 percent increase). More recently, the number of reported forcible sex crimes increased from 3,400 in 2011 to 3,900 in 2012 (a 15 percent increase). It is important to keep in mind that data are available only for reported crimes. Thus, the increase could reflect an actual increase in the number of forcible sex crimes, or an increase in the number of people who report the crime when it occurs.

Hate crime reports are relatively rare among the more than 4,700 campuses offering 2- and 4-year programs. In 2012, there were 791 reported hate crime incidents that occurred on the campuses of these public and private 2-year and 4-year institutions. For the three most common types of hate crimes reported in 2012 (vandalism, intimidation, and simple assault), the most frequent category of bias associated with these crimes was race, and the second most frequent was sexual orientation.

The video below presents some additional information about crime and safety on college campuses:

For more information, see Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2014.

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