Jeanne Clery was 19 when she was raped and murdered by a fellow student at Lehigh University 20 years ago.
An investigation found the man later convicted of her murder had walked through three propped-open doors and into her dorm room – a fact that prompted Clery’s parents to push for more information. What they found was shocking: There had been 181 incidents of propped doors in their daughter’s dorm four months prior to her death and 38 violent crimes in three years.
University officials knew it. But there was nothing that forced them to disclose it.
Four years later, the Clery Act was born and has become a benchmark for reporting campus crime. It’s what requires officials to send out crime alerts and make crime statistics public – lawmakers who drafted the legislation saw measures such as notifying staff and students of incidents as a safeguard against future incidents.
So when a string of burglaries where an intruder entered multiple student-occupied houses on Rhode Island Avenue, and in once incident grabbed a woman lying in bed, a delay in reporting the crimes raised questions over how quickly students should be notified.
Although the first incident was reported to Prince George’s County Police on Sept. 24, and the second on Sept. 26, University Police did not notify the campus community until Oct. 4.
University Police spokeswoman Maj. Cathy Atwell said the university sends out crime alerts “as soon as we can,” and has said the police delayed releasing the information about the intruder out of concern with interfering with the county’s investigation.
“The Clery Act allows information to be withheld if it would interfere with an investigation,” she said. “It was not our case.”
Prince George’s County Police said they believe the same suspect was involved in many of the incidents. Atwell said the county asked them to withhold the information, which is a very rare occurrence.
“I can’t remember a case, at least in the last couple of years, where we’ve had to withhold information to avoid jeopardizing an investigation,” Atwell said.
The Clery Act requires that police send out a “timely warning” for any crimes that occur but does not define “timely.” A U.S. Department of Education handbook on the law said schools should develop their own definition but noted warnings should be issued “as soon as the pertinent information is available.”
University Police usually report incidents within a business day, but it may take longer on the weekends, Atwell said.
When the Clerys won their lawsuit, Lehigh improved its security by establishing Security on Campus, Inc., a non-profit organization designated to preventing crime on the campus and assisting victims.
“The Clerys set about wanting to make sure that what had happened to them never happened again to any other family,” said S. Daniel Carter, Vice President of SOC. Carter said the Clerys worked with other victim groups to convince Congress to pass the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, which is now known as the Clery Act after a 1998 amendment made the requirements more stringent.
The Clery Act applies to “everything from a truck-driving or beauty college…to a major research university,” Carter said. It requires colleges and universities to inform students about criminal activity, disclose their policies on violent crime and sexual assault and keep extensive records about crimes on and off the campus.
University Police also compile an annual Safety and Security Brochure, which lays out police policies, programs and services, as well as crime statistics for the preceding three years.
Carter said compliance issues with the Clery Act that SOC deals with have dropped significantly since the act’s inception. He said the decrease in reporting problems has allowed SOC to work with schools individually to try to bring them into compliance.
“Probably the most fundamental change is that campus security is now an issue,” he added. “Twenty years ago it wasn’t something that was widely recognized.”
Contact reporter Steven Yenzer at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.
