DRUG AND ALCOHOL ARRESTS INCREASED ON CAMPUSES IN 2000

Drug arrests at the nation's colleges increased 10.2 percent in 2000, a
rise that some college officials attribute to a more casual attitude among
students toward drugs, particularly marijuana.

The growth rate was nearly twice as much as in 1999. The number of liquor
arrests also grew more in 2000, rising 4.2 percent, compared with just 0.4
percent in 1999.

The figures are based on trend data from 6,269 nonprofit and for-profit
educational institutions, released last month by the U.S. Education
Department. Both the trend data and an institution-by-institution breakdown
of reported crimes can be found at department Web sites.

This marks only the second year that the department has compiled
information on campus crime, but the trends generally conform to those in
surveys taken by The Chronicle since 1993.

Many college officials say that the bugs that plagued the collection
process last year have mostly been eliminated, and that this year's data
are more reliable. However, some red flags are still being raised. Based on
a complaint, the Education Department has accused one institution -- Salem
International University, in West Virginia -- of intentionally
underreporting crimes.

According to an analysis by The Chronicle of the department's data,
Pennsylvania State University at University Park in 2000 made the most drug
arrests, 175, and Michigan State University reported the largest number of
arrests for violations of liquor laws, 852.

As for other crimes, 16 murders occurred on campuses in 2000, five more
than in 1999. The department's Web site lists the total in 2000 as 20, but
The Chronicle found that four of those murders did not occur. Officials of
Boricua College, Grand Canyon University, North Carolina A&T State
University, and Pomona College were surprised to learn that the Web site
indicated murders had occurred on their campuses during that year, and said
that they must have submitted inaccurate information to the department.

The number of forcible sex offenses -- including rape, sodomy, and fondling
- -- dipped slightly, while nonforcible sex offenses rose nearly 2 percent.
By definition, nonforcible offenses include only incest and statutory rape,
but campus officials often incorrectly lump such crimes as voyeurism and
indecent exposure in the category.

The number of robberies, burglaries, and aggravated assaults on campuses
grew slightly, while incidents of arson increased 8.5 percent.
Motor-vehicle thefts and arrests for weapons-law violations decreased. The
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center reported the most weapons
arrests, 22. Campus officials say that the majority of those arrested were
patients and visitors to the hospital's emergency room, which has a metal
detector.

The Education Department's data also include crimes that occurred at
off-campus locations, as well as on public property surrounding campuses
and, in some cases, several miles away. When adding those locations, 391
murders occurred on and around campuses in 2000, along with 3,982 forcible
sex offenses, 42,455 liquor arrests, and 25,351 drug arrests.

Under federal law, educational institutions whose students receive federal
financial aid must compile information on crimes occurring on their
campuses, and make three years' worth of statistics available publicly.

Under changes approved by Congress in 1998, the Education Department was
ordered to compile the data annually, which it did for the first time in
the fall of 2000, collecting data for calendar years 1997, 1998, and 1999.

That first attempt was fraught with problems. Institutions were frustrated
by changes in the crime-reporting law, by difficulties in inputting the
data, and by crashes in the Education Department's computer system. The
confusion led to irregularities and errors in what many campuses reported.

For the second collection, which gathered crime statistics for 2000 and was
completed in October, the Education Department beefed up its technology.
The process went much more smoothly and efficiently, department officials
and campus police officers agree.

"There are still problems," says S. Daniel Carter, vice president of
Security on Campus, a campus-crime watchdog group in King of Prussia, Pa.
"But the genuine confusion is not as great."

Of the 11,276 drug arrests on campuses, 89 percent, or 10,004, occurred at
public and private nonprofit four-year institutions.

Five public institutions, each enrolling more than 28,000 students, made
more than 125 drug arrests: Penn State, Michigan State, Indiana University
at Bloomington, the University of California at Berkeley, and the
University of Iowa.

Penn State's 175 drug arrests were roughly double the number it made in
1999. Of the 175, 116 were made in campus residence halls, up from just 17
in 1999.

The majority of those arrests were for marijuana, says Bruce N. Kline,
assistant director of Penn State's police department. However, campus
officials are not sure whether that is the drug of choice among students;
it is the most noticeable because of its smell. Police officials credit the
dormitory's resident advisers with sterner enforcement, saying that the
institution has taken a strong stance against the use of illegal
substances. "Before, most RA's, if they smelled marijuana, they would
ignore it, or if they did any disciplining, it was internally," Mr. Kline
says. "Now they're calling us."

Some scholars have criticized the federal law requiring colleges to report
crimes more aggressively, saying it may cause resident advisers, who are
supposed to be counselors and advocates for students, to become an arm of
law enforcement.

Diane L. Andrews, Penn State's senior associate director of residence life,
has a different view. She says Penn State's RA's have always taken their
jobs seriously, but have not grown stricter. She attributes the higher
numbers to increased -- and more obvious -- drug use, especially of
marijuana, so it's coming to the advisers' attention much more readily.

"Students are a lot more open about it today, so when you come to their
room, they're just sitting there with the paraphernalia, " Ms. Andrews
says. "It's just more blatant. They don't care about putting the towel
under the door anymore."

A report by Harvard University's School of Public Health says that
marijuana use by college students nationwide increased nearly 22 percent
from 1993 to 1999.

Even though drug arrests in 2000 increased more than did liquor arrests,
the number of people arrested for such violations as underage drinking
remained higher.

Out of 26,091 liquor arrests, more than 90 percent, or 24,591, occurred on
the campuses of four-year, public and private colleges and universities.

Six institutions -- all public universities with more than 28,000 students
- -- made more than 400 liquor arrests each: Michigan State, the University
of Wisconsin at Madison, Western Michigan University, Indiana at
Bloomington, Arizona State University, and Louisiana State University at
Baton Rouge.

Michigan State, which ranked No. 1, with 852 liquor arrests, actually
reported four fewer in 2000 than it did in 1999. Of the 852, 163 were made
in residence halls. David L. Trexler, a police captain at Michigan State,
defends the numbers, saying they don't mean that his institution has a
bigger problem with underage drinking than any other campus. The arrest
numbers can rise or fall depending on how many home football games there
are or how many officers are on duty at a given time.

"I don't think people should be alarmed by the numbers, but there should be
concern," he says. "We don't go out looking for those violations, but our
officers don't look the other way."

Wisconsin's Madison campus held the No. 2 spot with 671 liquor arrests, up
considerably from the 446 reported in 1999. Of the 671, only 98 were made
in residence halls. Campus police officers say that most of the arrests
were made on property adjoining the campus, and that about 30 or 40 percent
of those arrested were not students.

While some institutions dealt with alcohol and drug violations through
arrests, others handled them largely through campus judicial systems.

In 2000, the 6,269 institutions made 120,063 liquor-offense referrals to
their campus judicial systems, and 21,199 drug-offense referrals. Of those,
115,838 liquor referrals and 19,693 drug referrals were reported by
four-year institutions.

Crime experts say that only when referrals are added to arrests can one get
a complete portrait of the problems colleges face with drinking.

The University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus reported the highest
number of liquor referrals, with 1,310. It was followed by the University
of Vermont, which reported 998 liquor referrals, but only five arrests.
Vermont also ranked No. 1 for drug referrals, with 377. It made 26 drug
arrests.

Gary J. Margolis, chief of police services at Vermont, points out that in
July 2000, the state "decriminalized" liquor-law violations, making them
civil offenses, much like speeding tickets, that are handled by the
municipal ordinance system rather than by criminal courts.

Most of the university's drug referrals came through resident advisers in
the dorms. The campus police have an "understanding" with the local state
attorney's office that the college has a strict enough campus judicial
system that it can handle minor drug violations -- the student caught with
a single marijuana cigarette, for instance. But if a student is caught
dealing or possessing large amounts of drugs, that will still go through
the criminal courts.

"No one on campus would argue we don't take this seriously," says Mr.
Margolis. "Some think we hold our students too accountable."

Of the 16 murders on campuses in 2000, three occurred at Seton Hall
University. A fire in a residence hall, in which three freshmen perished,
and more than 50 others were injured, was ruled arson. No one has been
charged, and that investigation is continuing.

Even though forcible sex offenses reported on campuses dipped by 0.5
percent, to 1,858, in 2000, crime experts say that change shouldn't be
interpreted to mean that fewer offenses occurred. Rape is the most
underreported crime, and campuses continue to have a tough time balancing
the privacy of the victim with the rights of the perpetrator.

Now, a case before the U.S. Supreme Court could alter what colleges are
willing to disclose about students accused of certain crimes. Last month,
the court agreed to decide whether private colleges can be sued for giving
out personal information about students. A graduate of Gonzaga University
charged that university officials revealed that he had been accused of
sexually assaulting a woman while he was a student there in the early
1990s. A jury ordered the college to pay him $1-million.

Many colleges remain confused about how rape statistics should be reported
under the existing law.

In December, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for example, corrected
inaccurate information it had given to the Education Department, after the
error was discovered by The Capital Times, a local newspaper.

The university had reported that in 2000, two forcible sex offenses
occurred on campus, and none in the dorms, and that in 1999 four were
reported on campus, but none in the dorms.

In fact, 19 forcible sex offenses were reported in 2000, of which nine were
in residence halls. In 1999, seven forcible offenses occurred, of which two
were in dorms.

Dale Burke, a captain with the university's police department, explains
that officials had previously not included rapes reported to the dean of
students. "We weren't trying to keep this information from the people," he
says. "There was a screw-up in how this was supposed to be reported."

In some cases, the errors may have been more intentional. A review by the
Education Department found that Salem International had failed to report at
least five sexual assaults and a number of other crimes from 1997 through
1999. The inquiry had been prompted by a complaint from the local police
chief, E.T. Howell, who charged that campus security officers were not
alerting the town's law-enforcement agency when crimes occurred on campus.

In an interview, Mr. Howell said that students came to the local Police
Department complaining that they had been the victims of crimes. But when
he'd ask college security officers for information, he said, he was
stonewalled. Meanwhile, evidence and leads in cases would dry up.

"To me, they went out of their way to keep us off campus," he said.
"Frankly, I didn't know what else to do but to contact someone to make them
help us investigate crimes."

In December, the department sent a letter to Salem International stating
that a review team had discovered the underreporting, leading some to
wonder whether the omissions "may have resulted from the deliberate and/or
willful acts of one or more university officials."

A campus watchdog group calculates that the college faces a fine of up to
$250,000. Campus officials have 60 days to respond, in writing, to each
allegation and to state how they plan to correct the problem.

As to whether campus officials were deliberately covering up criminal
behavior, Fred Zook, the university's interim president, says, "I don't
know if that's provable. But the people they're talking about are not here
anymore."

Under changes in federal law, institutions in 1999 were forced to expand
their reporting on hate crimes. In 2000, campuses reported a total of 555
crimes attributed to hate, an increase of 38 percent over 1999. Most of the
crimes were simple or aggravated assaults; 52 were forcible sex offenses.

Jeffrey A. Ross, national director for campus and higher-education affairs
at the Anti-Defamation League, attributes the overall increase in hate
crimes to better reporting, rather than an increase in incidents. The
legislative changes, he says, have forced colleges to tackle the issue, and
to come up with new ways to deal with the perpetrators and victims of hate
crimes.

"Historically, at colleges and universities, you have a culture of denial,"
Mr. Ross says. Officials would treat a hate crime as an isolated event, a
"public-relations matter, rather than a human-relations matter."

Campus-crime watchdogs agree, saying that's true of other crimes as well.
Although it is difficult to draw conclusions about what increases and
decreases in the statistics mean, they say, getting the numbers out is
critical.

"The most important lesson is that these campuses are not crime free," says
Mr. Carter, of Security on Campus. "And if there is a major problem on a
campus, people have the right to know."