VCU DISPUTES DRUG RANKING

Many nonstudent arrests contribute to No. 5 status

Virginia Commonwealth University is being featured in the nation's top
academic publication -- but for the unenviable reason of having the
fifth-highest number of drug arrests among colleges nationally.

Though VCU usually covets attention, university officials are hopping mad
that the drug ranking fails to differentiate between VCU students -- who
account for just 15 percent of the arrests -- and nonstudents around the
burgeoning urban campus.

"It's highly misleading," said VCU Vice President Paul Timmreck. "To make a
campus look good, you'd have a police department that didn't do anything
and didn't enforce the law."

VCU isn't alone in seeing campus area drug violations on the rise.
Nationally, campus arrests for drug offenses grew by 11.1 percent in 1997
and 1998, a survey being published this week by The Chronicle of Higher
Education shows.

Alcohol-related arrests accelerated even more, up 24.3 percent to 23,261
cases in 1998, the latest national figures available. That's the largest
increase in seven years, a fact law-enforcement officials attribute to
colleges'

beefed-up enforcement of alcohol policies and education efforts to curb
students' excessive drinking.

Those efforts have been particularly intense in Virginia, where Attorney
General Mark L. Earley led a 1998 task force to attack binge drinking after
the deaths of five Virginia college students in drinking-related accidents.

Despite the increase in cases, colleges' push to curb student drinking
apparently is having an impact. Some studies indicate the number of
students who consume alcohol is declining, though those who drink are
consuming more heavily, the Chronicle reports. At the same time, the
increase in drug arrests - up from 7,964 to 8,844 over the two-year period
- is prompting concern of a resurgence in the use of illegal drugs by
students nationally.

A University of Michigan study found that, in 1992, 27 percent of high
school seniors had recently used an illegal drug such as marijuana or
cocaine. By 1997, that had increased to 42 percent.

"There's been an increase nationwide in substance abuse. Those colleges
that haven't seen it will see it soon," said University of Virginia Police
Chief Michael Sheffield.

The number of drug offenses at U.Va. remained relatively low in the latest
reporting period, with 15 arrests in 1998 compared with 14 the year before.
But drug problems are on the rise around U.Va.'s campus, Sheffield said,
citing his department's investigation into a drug network that is expected
to yield arrests soon.

"It's personal use and also distribution," he said. "What we're seeing
isn't unique. But it's enough to be concerned. There's been a big increase
in the use of marijuana and ecstasy [a synthetic mood enhancer] nationwide."

Tracking such trends is the intent behind a 10-year-old federal law that
requires colleges to publicly disclose crimes to persons and property that
occur on their campuses. A recent change in that law also requires colleges
to report crimes that occur near campus to ensure their statistics capture
areas where many students live and socialize.

Some college officials argue the annual reports can be misleading to
students and parents. Campuses showing more crime aren't necessarily less
safe than schools with lower rates but simply may have more diligent
enforcement efforts or may encourage students more strongly to report
problems, particularly sexual offenses, officials say.

They also argue the federal reports can skew views of inner-city campuses,
which commonly have higher crime rates. At VCU, many of the thefts,
assaults and weapons offenses that occur in the neighborhoods around the
academic campus and on the busy thoroughfares encircling the medical campus
are included in the university's crime figures.

VCU also has hired more police officers and stepped up its enforcement in
recent years in the Carver neighborhood and other areas around Broad
Street. That has made them safer for students and residents, Timmreck said,
but has hurt appearances in campus crime reports.

"Our entire jurisdiction is probably double the size of the campus," he
said. "A lot of the drug arrests we've made are where we've taken the
initiative in the Carver area."

In 1998, for instance, VCU's 122 drug arrests included 103 people not
enrolled at the school. The university's 157 liquor-law arrests that year
included just 42 students. The same pattern holds true with VCU's yet
unpublished 1999 data showing 211 drug arrests on the academic campus -- 30
of which involved students, Timmreck said.

"People could assume you've got 211 students out there arrested for drug
violations. That's simply not the case," he said.

Similarly, U.Va.'s eye-popping alcohol arrest rate -- up from two cases in
1997 to 166 a year later -- was the direct result of a then-new policy
prohibiting alcohol consumption at many football tailgate parties. Only
partygoers of legal age in reserved areas covered by state liquor licenses
could imbibe, rules U.Va. police strictly enforced in its push to curb
underage drinking, Sheffield said.

Sexual offenses also show significant variation from college to college,
with the government now changing how these offenses should be classified
and reported to make them more comparable nationwide, Virginia Tech
spokesman Larry Hincker said.

The Blacksburg school routinely includes all sexual offenses reported to
school counselors, deans and the student health center because many women
are reluctant to go to the police, Hincker said. Such efforts, in part,
account for the quadrupling in sexual offenses reported in Virginia Tech's
data between 1997 and 1998, he added.

"We're doing a better job of picking up offenses that people just don't
want to go to the police about," Hincker said. "But it's been very
difficult for all of higher education to try and provide numbers [on sexual
offenses]. This is an area where the whole country is still learning to count."

[sidebar]

DRUG ARRESTS

Virginia Commonwealth University was among the five colleges nationally
reporting the most drug arrests in 1998.

1. University of California at Berkeley, 280 arrests.

2. Rutgers University in New Jersey, 138 arrests.

3. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 132 arrests.

4. University of Arizona, 123 arrests.

5. Virginia Commonwealth University, 122 arrests.

Source - The Chronicle of Higher Education