COLLEGE DRUG ARRESTS UP FOR 6TH YEAR

Crime: Officials say enforcement is behind 7% higher alcohol-related
detentions and 4% more illicit-substance violations.

Washington - Drug arrests rose by 7.2 percent and alcohol-related arrests by
more than 3.6 percent on college campuses in 1997, the sixth consecutive
year of increases, according to a survey being released Monday by The
Chronicle of Higher Education, a national newspaper that covers education
and academic life.

In 1996, alcohol-related arrests increased by 10 percent and drug arrests by
5 percent. As in past years, college law-enforcement officials and
administrators attributed the rise to aggressive enforcement policies rather
than to more use of drugs and alcohol.

"There is greater attention to security concerns at colleges becausethe
consumers - parents - forced schools to make campuses safer," said S. Daniel
Carter, the vice president of Security on Campus Inc., a nonprofit
organization based in King of Prussia, Pa., that works with colleges and
universities to prevent campus crime and to deal with violators and victims.

According to the annual study, which tracked crime reports at the nation's
major colleges and universities, there were 7,897 drug arrests in 1997, up
from 7,370 in 1996, and 17,624 alcohol-related arrests, up from 17,019 in 1996.

Colleges are required by federal law to compile the number of crimes
reported on campus each year. The Chronicle's survey covers 483 four-year
colleges and universities with more than 5,000 students each.

Keeping pace with national trends, the number of robberies and burglaries
fell 9 percent in 1996 and 8 percent in 1997, for a total of 14,837 in 1997.
Motor-vehicle thefts were down by 9 percent. Reports of aggravated assaults
were down, and the number of murders on compus fell after increases the
previous two years, from 15 in 1995 and 19 in 1996 to 13 in 1997.

The number of reported sex assaults grew to 1,053 from 1,049. Other sex
offenses - including statutory rape, incest, indecent exposure and lewd
behavior - were down 29.5 percent, to 93. But safety experts noted that sex
offenses are the crimes least likely to be reported by victims.

About 40 percent of the schools surveyed indicated that hate crimes had
occurred on their campuses in 1997; about one-third reported this in the
previous survey.

The University of California, Berkeley (with an enrollment of 29.797), which
had the most drug arrests in 1996, topped the list in 1997 with 179. It was
followed again by San Jose State University, with 162. There were 142
arrests at the University of Arizona, 127 at Arizona State University and
126 at the University of Utah.

For the second year in a row, Michigan State University (with an enrollment
of 41,545) reported the highest number of alcohol-related arrests, 633. Next
cam the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, with 555. They were followed by
UC Berkeley, with 460.