The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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April 24, 2007

Oklahoma: Crime report covers college campuses



The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — There were more than 500 violent crimes reported on or near Oklahoma’s post-secondary campuses during a recent three-year span, according to a published report.

The analysis of federal data by The Oklahoman also revealed there were nearly 100 arrests for illegal weapons possession from 2003 through 2005, the latest year available. Although no killings were reported during the period, the reported offenses include forcible sex crimes, robberies and aggravated assaults.

Institutions including traditional college campuses and less traditional for-profit sites report data as part of the federal Clery Act. The law, aimed at raising awareness of campus crime and improving safety, was named after Jeanne Clery, a woman raped, tortured, sodomized and murdered in 1986 while living in campus housing at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Campus crime is again an issue after a troubled student killed 32 students at Virginia Tech last week before committing suicide.

In Oklahoma, colleges and universities are re-evaluating security plans and Gov. Brad Henry has appointed a task force.

Also at issue is how forthcoming image-conscious campus officials are about crime.

“If you were to go to campuses and talk to most college or university journalists who are battling administrators for information, then they would say, ’Yes. This school is more concerned about public relations than it is in providing accurate information to the community,”’ said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, which has studied the issue.

Goodman said his organization conducted an audit in the Washington area and found campuses often were reluctant or unwilling to share even blatantly public records, such as police logs.

About a dozen institutions have faced financial fines from the federal Education Department since 1998 for Clery Act-related errors, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.

Officials at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, the state’s two largest universities, say that wouldn’t happen at their institutions.

“We’re going to be open and honest and transparent,” said Gary Shutt, an OSU spokesman. “Certainly, we’re going to report by the law and be as open and honest as we can be. It does no one any good to not report accurately what’s going on.”

OU President David Boren said his university has demonstrated campus security is important, including new policies on underage drinking and alcohol abuse.

“We welcome efforts, such as the Clery Act, that can reassure students, their parents, and our faculty and staff of all the services and protections the university makes available to them,” Boren said in a statement.

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