Ohio University Police Department is now responsible for disclosing more information that might be helpful for the OU community.
There were six cases of stalking and two cases of dating violence reported to the Ohio University Police Department last year, according to new data from OUPD that has, in the past, not been required to be included in its federally-mandated annual crime report.
There were no reported cases in 2013 of domestic violence, a third crime that is included in the department’s Clery Report, a federally-mandated data trove.
The crimes are obviously a black spot on the state of crime at OU; however, it is great that this information is now available in the annual report.
To be clear, the new information contained in the report is public, and OUPD should make it available to anyone who asks for it via a public records request. But, in reality, there aren’t many students banging on the door at OUPD’s Scott Quad headquarters wanting to learn more about campus crime.
So this report makes it easy. It is emailed to students, it is online and campus and local media such as The Post report on this information. As The Post reported Monday, crime on the Athens campus is generally down across the board — from drug and alcohol-related offenses to peer-on-peer crimes.
Another reason why this new information is a big deal is because it begs the question: How much of this crime has been occurring in years past while the public was left in the dark? (The information has always been available but not open to the level of scrutiny as data in the Clery Report.)
OUPD Chief Andrew Powers said that because this is the first year OUPD has had to comply with federal law in reporting those crimes, it’s the first time they’ve had to quantify the crimes in a certain manner.
“The Clery definitions are a separate and unique set of definitions which we use to classify reports made to the police,” Powers said. “Since these definitions did not exist during 2011 and 2012, and we did not collect data using them from any of the sources that report to Clery, we simply don’t have the numbers” for past years.
OUPD Det. Matthew Austin, the department’s Clery compliance officer, said the new data should be used as a catalyst for change.
“The biggest thing about this — and this is exactly what the Clery Act is all about — is that with information comes a better preservation of security,” and that now “people know what crimes are out there and they aren’t ignorant to those facts.”
Austin’s point is a valuable one. These are serious crimes that are incredibly relevant to our culture at OU, where all instances of sexual misconduct are considered Class A offenses, subject to all forms of reprimand: disciplinary probation, suspension or expulsion.
According to the Women’s Center at Ohio University, 30 percent of college students have been in relationships that involve physical aggression. Director Susanne Dietzel could not be reached for comment when I called the Women’s Center on Tuesday.
Now, it’s important to note that critics of Clery reports would say police departments have been known to skew the data by not including a slew of crimes in the report, and that you should take Clery report data with a grain of salt. For example, The Columbus Dispatch published a report this week blasting Clery reports, writing that they are “so misleading that they give students and parents a false sense of security.”
But this specific set of data is out now, and we cannot hide from it. These crimes aren’t just abstract things you read in or watch on the news anymore. It’s now personal, and it’s up to stakeholders of OU to create the safest culture we possibly can for all current and future Bobcats.
The first step: understanding the problem. This year, OUPD’s Clery Report continues to be an important tool to help us do that.
Joshua Jamerson is a senior studying journalism, senior editor at The Post and writes a weekly column for The Post’s news pages.
