Lt. Tim Stump of the UNM Police Department said the three new sections of this report, released Oct. 1, include data on dating violence, domestic violence and stalking, and were added based on recommendations made by the Violence Against Women Act of 2013.
According to the Report, the number of sexual assaults increased from four reported in 2012 to 11 in 2013. Additionally, Stump said UNMPD had six reported sexual assaults between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year.
Seven of UNM’s 11 dating violence instances occurred on campus: three in residential facilities, and four on University property.
Fifteen incidents of domestic violence were reported, as well: 13 on campus property, and two on non-campus property in the area.
There were also four stalking incidents reported, all of which were on campus property.
Stump said that before last year the University did not have systems in place to specifically respond to sexual assaults and related incidents, and that the higher number of reported sexual assaults could be due to the improved reporting process.
“This (increase) may be attributed to the initiatives in place. Things that differ are the University formed a Sexual Assault Response Team in 2013. This provided many resources for victims of sexual assault to come forward and report the incident. It is now called the Sexual Misconduct & Assault Response Team,” Stump said.
The reports added that burglaries decreased from 38 to 26 between 2012 and 2013. Stump said this was because UNMPD has prioritized theft as a major concern.
“In 2013 we added four more officers and increased our foot patrol efforts that helped reduce burglaries,” he said.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act is the federal law also known as the Campus Security Act. The Clery Act requires all colleges and universities across the U.S. participating in federal financial aid programs to disclose information about crimes on campus and on public property immediately adjacent to the campus.
The Clery Act is named after 19-year-old Jeanne Clery, who was raped and killed in her Lehigh University dorm room in 1986.
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In mid-August, a UNM Internal Auditor’s report — the Preliminary Assessment of Clery Act Compliance Report — had found that the University was not substantially compliant with the Clery Act and had warned that the University could face heavy fines due to the non-compliance.
The report warned that the University is not collecting enough of the right data, and may be over-reporting in areas such as student discipline referrals.
However, UNM has taken steps toward fixing these problems, such as creating a new Clery coordinator position and the inclusion of better education and awareness for students about crime on campus.
“Early on the Clery Act was primarily focused on crime statistics, and so it pretty much fell on the police department’s shoulders to ensure those crime statistics were reported annually,” Deputy UNM Police Chief Christine Chester, interim Clery coordinator, said in an article published in the Daily Lobo on Sept. 2. “With the new amendments it just became an overwhelming task to do on its own. For Clery compliance, it’s got to be a collaborative, University-wide effort.”
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
