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Media Credit: Kevin Woodard

Over the past year, Sacramento State has seen an increase in the number of student and community-reported incidents of robbery and vehicle theft and a decrease in the overall number of arrests, according to the Campus Security annual report. The report, which is part of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crimes Statistics Act, was released by the Public Safety Department and University Police earlier this month.

The act is part of a federal law that requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose crime statistics for incidents that occur on and around their campuses, according to the University Police website.

The annual report includes statistics from places such as residence halls, non-campus property and public property. This year’s report includes all crimes and arrests through 2006.

Crime statistics are divided into nine different categories, including negligent and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible and non-forcible sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, arson and hate crimes.

For the third year in a row, the number of reported aggravated assaults decreased. Overall, aggravated assaults have gone down close to 90 percent.

The number of burglaries decreased by 29 percent in 2006.

The decline in these crimes seems to reflect students’ attitudes toward crimes on campus.

“I feel safe on campus because I haven’t had

any reason to fear for my life yet,” said undeclared freshman Araceli Guzman. “Although I am new to Sacramento, it seems like a really safe place to be.”

Some crimes that increased since 2005 are robbery and vehicle theft. The number of reported robberies more than doubled over the past year. The crime that increased the most was motor vehicle theft. There were 58 incidents in 2006 compared to 33 in 2005, a difference of about 43 percent.

There were nine reported incidents of forcible sex offenses in 2006, up from six in 2005. There was also one reported non-forcible sex offense, compared to zero incidents the previous two years.

The number of arrests in 2006 was about 20 percent lower than in previous years. There were 44 arrests last year, down from 55 in 2005 and 54 in 2004. Arrest totals include liquor, drug and weapons violations.

Despite the decrease in some major crimes since 2005, some feel improvements can still be made.

“To make students safer, putting more police officers on campus would be a good idea,” Guzman said. “The campus is really spread out so if I needed help, someone might not hear me.”

Others, like senior communications major Brianna Morris, feel that students should not be totally dependent on campus police.

“I think students should be proactive when it comes to their own safety,” Morris said. “Students need to make smart decisions and try not to let themselves become potential victims.”

The “Clery Act” is named in memory of 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Clery who was raped and murdered while asleep in her residence hall room on April 5, 1986.

Jeanne’s parents, Connie and Howard Clery, discovered that students hadn’t been told about 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh campus in the three years before Jeanne’s murder. They joined with other campus crime victims and persuaded Congress to enact this law, which was originally known as the “Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990,” according to the campus police website.

The law was amended in 1998 to expand reporting requirements.

The entire report can be viewed at the university police website at http://www.csus.edu/police/cleryact.stm.

Michael Calvillo can be reached at [email protected].