My D20 has started too look at some schools and I happened upon the College Navigator site and then started looking at crime stats for Susquehanna. For such a small school, do you think these stats are alarming? Can anyone explain why the drug and alcohol arrests are so high? Is it a dry campus where they call in the cops whenever kids are caught with alcohol or drugs? And are drugs a real problem on campus? Other schools of similar size don’t seem to have the same stats(although the rape and fondling stats seem about average). I don’t mind kids partying (although not a fan of a drug culture) but I don’t want my D to end up with a criminal record because they are so strict.
70 liquor law arrests
over 100 drug arrests
20 burglary
10 rape
18 fondling
Here is a link to Susquehanna’s 2018 Annual Security Report and Annual Fire Safety Report. It has a lot more detail and answers several of your questions.
https://www.susqu.edu/Documents/campus-life/campus-safety/clery-report-2018.pdf
I should add that this was over a 3 year period 2015-2017.
Another alarming one to me was Hobart and William Smith with:
33 rapes
47 burglaries
For a school of 2300 undergrads those stats would be outrageous but that isn’t what I see on the college Navigator site. This is what I get: 2014 2015 2016
Drug law violations 15 15 39
Liquor law violations 20 17 31
Are you adding years together? Are those arrests or just in school violations?
Sorry I see you’ve added that you are adding them together. I know that at some schools the stats gravely under-estimate the risk because they only report what happens on their campus-even if students spend considerable amount of time in very circumscribed places off campus-and even if they have buildings in proximity to those areas off campus-what happens there does not count. So even murders in dwellings off campus that are earmarked for students are not recorded in the school stats. So those stats are more deceptive than helpful.
Use the numbers from the 2018 Clery report, linked above. Remember, you have to get the rate per student, or per 1,000 students, however you want to do it, to compare these numbers across colleges…just using the absolute numbers won’t work. In addition to a wide variety of campus policies and practices regarding alcohol and drug use, there are also differences in the way schools report these incidents, as well as differences in state/local laws (e.g. legalized marijuana, civil vs. criminal offenses), which may impact the veracity and/or comparability of the Clery report data.
Susquehanna is a very popular choice in our area. S17’s ex-girlfriend is there. I know there is a lot of drinking but it seems pretty accepted so I don’t think there’s a big fear of being arrested. Everyone I know who’s gone there has loved it and I’ve never heard any negative feedback about crime.
Probably the highest risk college environment for a new freshwoman is a party with lots of alcohol. New frosh whose first experience with alcohol is at a college party may get more drunk than they know, leaving them more vulnerable to being victims of various crimes or being arrested for crimes committed while drunk.
The Clery report includes only incidents occurring on property owned by the school which makes comparisons across schools difficult. Consider comparing a school where students nearly always party on school property compared to one located near a downtown area that draws students to stores, cafes, restaurants and other venues. Or consider comparing a school where all students live on campus compared to those where an appreciable number live off campus in property not owned by the school. Even if the crime targets students, and even if it occurs on property that is earmarked for students (like student apartment complexes or student housing), it does not “count” and is not recorded on the Clery report. The report should include all crime where students were victims while living in proximity to the school-but that is not what the Clery Report does. So comparing across schools would be misleading.
You can drive yourself crazy with stats. I read an article about crime reports not reflecting the real crime around 6 Chicago Universities - it was eye opening. In depth reporting of how the Clery report data can be way off.
Case Western is another school thats tricky to evaluate for crime, because just like Chicago, crime festers small in neighborhoods.
Chicago varies block to block and so does Cleveland. University Circle Cleveland is reasonably safe.
I think small liberal arts college towns are always way are less crime ridden than any US City,
and the crime stats are somehow way off, but I do not understand why they are so far off.