ALCOHOL, DRUGS LEAD CAMPUS CRIME

Schools Caution Numbers Can Be Misleading

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Alcohol and drug violations topped the list of 1999
crimes and disciplinary actions on Kentucky campuses, according to a
Courier-Journal analysis of data reported to the federal government.

The four-year public universities also reported numerous assaults and
burglaries. And there were occasional cases of rape, arson, robbery, auto
theft and hate crime.

But since there are differing interpretations of the federal reporting
requirements, observers said students and their families should look beyond
the numbers. For example, University of Kentucky officials read the
regulations narrowly and reported no campus alcohol arrests or disciplinary
action.

The information, reported to the U.S. Department of Education, "will
provide a starting point for further exploration," said Terry Hartle,
senior vice president at the American Council on Education, a
higher-education lobbying group in Washington, D.C. "No student or family
should look at this data as the final word."

"Serious crime does occur on college campuses," Hartle said. "Thankfully it
occurs rarely."

Federal law requires that all institutions enrolling students who receive
federal financial aid make annual reports on crimes that occur on or near
campuses. Yesterday was the deadline for reporting 1999 data.

The law was enacted in 1990 to give students and their families an idea of
the safety of a campus. It was also intended to hold schools accountable
for notifying their students of crime problems on campuses.

The Education Department posted the statistics on a Web site,
ope.ed.gov/security. Although not all Kentucky institutions were
represented on the site, it was expected that they would meet yesterday's
deadline or a brief extension that the department was prepared to grant.

A new state law required Kentucky institutions to report similar data to
the Council on Postsecondary Education by Sept. 1. Although some missed
that deadline, all had provided the data to the council by yesterday.

By looking strictly at the numbers, one might conclude that students at
Eastern Kentucky University, which enrolled 15,188 students in 1999, drank
more than those at the University of Kentucky, with 23,742 students that
year.

EKU took disciplinary action against 229 students for alcohol-related
violations -- the most in the state -- and seven students were arrested on
campus for violating liquor laws, according to its reported data. UK, by
contrast, reported that no students were arrested or disciplined for
alcohol abuse.

TOM LINDQUIST, EKU's director of public safety, said the large number of
disciplinary actions resulted from strict enforcement, particularly in the
residence halls.

"We have a fairly stringent policy," he said. "There's a lot of supervision
that goes on in the dormitories. They have a strong alcohol policy, and
it's brought to our attention more often."

UK officials, meanwhile, said their data complied with the federal
regulations, which call for not including public drunkenness or drunken
driving in the statistics.

"We strictly followed what they told us to do," said Rebecca Langston,
chief of UK police.

Langston said the alcohol-related information is posted on UK's Web site.
The site indicates there were 34 alcohol intoxication arrests on campus in
1999, 26 drunken-driving arrests, and 31 citations of minors in possession
of alcohol.

Jane Glickman, an Education Department spokeswoman, said that although UK
was not required to report its intoxication or drunken-driving arrests, it
should have reported the underage-drinking citations.

Moreover, she said, most colleges and universities see it as a public
service to report as much information to the federal government as
possible.

"Certainly drinking on campus is a great concern to parents," Glickman
said. "There's nothing in the law that says don't provide more
information."

TRAVIS D. MANLEY, director of communications and information services for
the UK police, said he and other university officials did not get clear
guidance from the Education Department on whether to include the citations.

"In my opinion, they need to clear up their definitions," Manley said.

Other factors affected an institution's alcohol-related arrests and
disciplinary actions, including whether the campus is "dry" or "wet" and
the rigor of enforcement, campus officials said.

There are mixed views about the value of campus crime statistics.

Hartle, of the education council, said that in addition to reviewing
statistics, students and parents should learn about how a campus approaches
crime prevention and enforcement. That includes knowing about lighting on
campus, the security of locks in dormitories and the presence of such
services as escorts.

Lindquist, the EKU director of public safety, said, "If you want to know
how many rapes there were or how safe it is to walk at night, it (the
statistics alone) really doesn't give you a good picture."

CAMPUS POLICE maintain that crime, as in the general population, is
generally underreported on campuses, and that affects statistics.

"That's not because administrators are trying to cover things up, but
because the victims don't want to become a part of the process," said Doug
Brown, director of public safety at Morehead State University.