STLCC Police Captain encourages students, staff to play active role in crime reporting
By: Bri Heaney, News Editor
Saint Louis Community College recently published its 2019 Security and Fire Safety Report. This report details the crimes and incidents reported that are associated with the college. Due to the Clery Act, all universities and colleges are required to publish such reports by Oct. 1.
The security report is a statistical record of all recorded incidents from the three previous school years. STLCC’s Police Captain Benjamin Talley was a major part in capturing and compiling this year’s Security and Fire Safety Report.
The 2019 Security and Fire Safety Report is now available at https://www.stlcc. edu/docs/policies-and-procedures/2019-Annual-Security-Report.pdf.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act was enacted in 1990, four years after the rape and murder of Jeanne Clery in her dorm on the campus. The university she attended, Lehigh University, did not make known what had happened to the surrounding community after the incident. The college was found to have and unreported history of violent crimes in a lawsuit led by Jeanne’s parents. Thirty eight violent crimes ensued on campus in the three years prior to Jeanne Clery’s rape and murder.
“The campus at that time did not inform their community of the issue,” said Talley. “This was a watershed moment for colleges and universities.”
The Clery Act formed to start mandating universities to provide statistical information to college students, potential college students, their families and the community as to what occurs in a college or university setting to ensure transparency, said Talley. The federally-mandated legislation requires colleges to share in the report any incident that is categorized in its catalog, even if the incident was not reported to the police.
“Let’s say the dean of students says that you told her that your car was stolen but you did not report it to the police,” said Talley. “We would have to take a statistic on that incident, even if we did not thoroughly investigate it, even though it did not involve the police.”
Talley said this is often sensitive to sexual offenses in which victims do not report the offense to the police.
“We understand more than ever now that victims sometimes don’t want to go forward with the law enforcement or criminal justice system. It’s [the security report] purely statistical,” he said.
Talley said that it’s important to remember that while it is Public Safety’s job to track and compile incidents, it is the community’s responsibility as a w“hole to ensure the accuracy of the report. He also said that it is detrimental that when incidents occur that they are then reported to a school official.
“It’s important to stress that the Clery Act is not a police officer only thing,” said Talley. “[And] it is not a public safely only thing. It’s a holistic thing. It’s a community thing.”
He said that it’s the responsibility of not one person or department to receive Title IV funding.
“[The] Clery Act is specific in how we report things and what we report so that the statistics are uniform on a national level,” said Talley.
The only crimes that are reported if there is an actual arrest are alcohol related crimes, drug related crimes and weapon-related offenses.
“That’s not because other things don’t happen but that’s because that’s what they ask us to report,” said Talley. “Now as to why they came up with those three things, I have no idea.”
Talley encourages students and staff to play an active role in not only being aware of crime statistics but reporting incidents as they occur. “It’s our duty to report incidents,” said Talley. “It’s your right to be informed.”
