CAMPUS AGAIN HAS MOST DRUG ARRESTS

UC-Berkeley: Few Detainees Were Students, National Report Says.

For the third consecutive year, the University of California-Berkeley
recorded the most drug arrests, according to 1998 national college crime
data compiled by the weekly newspaper the Chronicle of Higher Education.

But fewer than one in 20 of those arrested on the huge urban campus were
students. At the same time, while drug arrests are up at Berkeley, alcohol
is still a more significant problem, school, health and law enforcement
officials said. Berkeley ranked fifth in the nation for alcohol arrests.

The survey showed that for the seventh year in a row, liquor and drug
arrests rose at universities across the nation. Alcohol arrests nationally
were up by 24.8 percent from the year before, the biggest jump in seven
years, according to the newspaper's survey of crime reported by 481
colleges. Drug arrests rose by 11.1 percent, the sharpest rise in three years.

Publication of the crime reports is an annual event that can send campus
police chiefs running for cover and set parents and students puzzling over
what to make of the numbers. Even the Chronicle advises that high numbers
do not necessarily mean a campus is less safe than others.

Still, the survey has sparked some schools' to crack down on crime and beef
up drug and alcohol prevention efforts. After the last survey, UC-Berkeley
added four campus police officers, bringing its force to 75, installed blue
emergency phones in the high-crime area south of the campus and changed the
way it dispatches campus escorts.

The survey of 1998 crime reports included four-year colleges with
enrollments of more than 5,000. The results are posted on the paper's Web
site (chronicle.com/stats/crime)

The data comes with caveats: Not every school computes the numbers in the
same way or defines crimes in the same way. Some institutions report data
for some types of crime; others do not. Some, like Berkeley, include crimes
that occur off campus.

``Most people we deal with aren't affiliated with the university,'' said
Lt. Adan Tejada, who handles community outreach for the campus police
department. With the densely populated People's Park and Telegraph Avenue
in his department's jurisdiction, the high crime profile ``has to do with
the setting we're in.''

And sometimes mistakes are made, like when San Jose State University was
named last year as among the schools in the country with the most narcotics
arrests.

As it turns out, San Jose was listed as having the second most narcotics
arrests behind Berkeley for 1997 when its drug arrests were inadvertently
combined with arrests for driving under the influence. Instead of the 162
drug arrests reported in the Chronicle, there were 68. For 1998, the paper
reports SJSU having 72 drug arrests to Berkeley's 280.

Other 1998 figures:

San Jose State had the fifth most weapons arrests in the nation, with 20 in
1998. Berkeley had the second most, 34.

Among Bay Area campuses, affluent Stanford University, with its vast
holdings of commercial and residential property, appeared to be the
undisputed burglary hot spot, with 189 incidents reported in 1998. By
comparison, Berkeley and San Jose State reported 89 and 38 burglaries,
respectively.

Although Berkeley recorded the fifth most alcohol arrests in the nation in
1998 with 382, the number of alcohol arrests had declined from 460 the year
before.

Forcible sexual assaults were reported at San Francisco State (2), San Jose
State (9), Stanford (6), UC-Berkeley (7), UC-Santa Cruz (2) and the
University of San Francisco (1). Only Santa Clara University among bay area
college reported none.

Behind the numbers

Looking behind Berkeley's 280 drug arrests for 1998 gives a clearer picture
of the kind of detail a statistic can conceal. Of those arrests, 76 were
for felonies and the rest were misdemeanors. The misdemeanors included
citations for crimes such as smoking a marijuana cigarette, Tejada said.

None of those arrested for narcotics felonies had known ties to the
university, and only 15 of those arrested for misdemeanors had a university
affiliation.

As at Berkeley, many of those who cause trouble at San Jose State
University are not associated with the school, said Ric Abeyta, the campus
police chief. And some of the crimes take place off campus, for example, at
the stadium, on the streets around the campus or in fraternity or sorority
houses.

``We had 702,000 people here last year for special events,'' he added,
listing such attractions as rock concerts, lectures and soccer and football
games.

Abeyta also remarked on discrepancies in how schools report and define
crimes. He noted that in the Chronicle of Higher Education report, UCLA
reported zero drug arrests in 1998, which seems unlikely for a campus of
more than 35,000.

San Jose State has worked closely with the city's police in recent years to
crack down on crime and beef up code enforcement in the surrounding
neighborhoods, Abeyta said. The campus and the city have established a
university-city task force to deal with improving the quality of life
around the university.

``Overall I think the campus is at a level that the public should not be
overly concerned about crime,'' Abeyta said.

In publishing its survey, the Chronicle warns that comparisons among
institutions should be done with caution.

``The crime reports do not consider the nature of the institution (rural or
urban, residential or commuter),'' the paper states. ``In addition,
institutions with highly professional police departments may pursue crime
more aggressively than do those that handle most incidents through a campus
judicial system.''

Methods color statistics

Berkeley's Tejada agrees on the last point. An aggressive campus police
department helps push the numbers up.

``We are going out and enforcing the law and catching bad guys,'' he said.
``That's what we do.''

Berkeley has launched a research study about attitudes toward drug and
alcohol use on campus. Using information from the study, the campus
Prevention Research Center hopes to develop strategies tailored at
individual communities, such as fraternities and sororities, to reduce
drinking and drug abuse.

Bucking the national trend, alcohol arrests at Berkeley are down from last
year. Tejada said it appears that students may be drinking less often, but
consuming more when they do drink. Campus police also are seeing more club
drugs, such as ecstasy.

In the alcohol arrest category, Berkeley finished just behind four colleges
in cooler climes: In rank order they are, the University of Wisconsin at
Madison (792 arrests), Michigan State University (655), University of
Minnesota-Twin Cities (606) and Western Michigan University (405).

Tops in the drug arrest category, in order behind Berkeley were: Rutgers
University-New Brunswick (138), University of North Carolina-Greensboro
(132), University of Arizona (123) and Virginia Commonwealth University (122).

Contact Becky Bartindale at bbartindale@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5459.