Caelin Bragg
Lantern Staff
As part of the Clery Act, colleges are required to release annual reports on the crime that has been committed on its campus every year.
The Clery Act was enacted for the purpose of informing the public of how a college handles its security around campus and informs the public of what kinds of crimes have been committed on and around its campuses.
The crime categories as listed by the Clery Center that colleges are required to disclose include criminal offenses such as criminal homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson. Colleges are also required to disclose hate crimes, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) offenses like domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking and they are required divulge arrests made on violations of weapon, drug and liquor laws.
The responsibility of putting together the report here at Butler falls on the shoulders of the chief of police on campus who takes all the specific case reports from officers on campus and puts all the data into the final security report, which can take several days to finish. Butler has released its annual security reports every Oct. 1 as required by the act since 2012, allowing the public to see its crime records back to 2009.
“I believe the annual Clery Act reports [are] a great way of informing the public and student[s] and staff of the crimes that are occurring on campus each year,” Acting Chief of Police Philip Crom said. “I wouldn’t change anything about it.”
The Clery Act was signed into law in 1990 and is named after a student of Lehigh University, Jeanne Clery, who was murdered in her campus dorms. According to the Clery Center, her parents were the ones who pushed for the act as, at the time, transparency on crime on college campuses was not a thing like they are now.
“Compared to other junior colleges in Kansas, I believe Butler is one of the safest college[s] in Kansas,” Acting Chief Crom said. “The way it stands at this time, Butler has one of the best track records for being one of the safest campus[es] around.”
The annual security reports show that Butler has a very good standing across all campuses. No hate crimes, as defined by the Clery Center, have been committed since Butler started issuing its reports, and criminal offenses are all very low except for an uptick in forcible sexual offenses on the El Dorado campus, going from zero in 2013 to one in 2014 and six in 2015.
Following the tradition as required by law, Butler’s next annual security report will be released on Sunday, Oct. 1, showing the crimes committed over 2016.
