Content warning: The following article includes mentions of sexual assault.
The University of Oregon’s Campus Security and Fire Safety Report for 2020, released on Oct. 1, showed an increase in crimes like burglary and motor vehicle theft, but a decrease in crimes like rape, fondling and stalking. There were fewer arrests for drugs and liquor.
The Campus Fire and Safety report, otherwise known as the Clery report, is issued yearly in compliance with the federal Clery Act.
“The overall goal of the Clery Act is transparency and accountability,” Jeslyn Everitt, UO associate general counsel who helped write this year’s report, said. “We’re trying to be forthcoming with the crime statistics on campus and the various avenues for reporting crimes. We really hope that this is a tool that students and other community members can use to inform the institution and so we can inform our community members.”
The Clery report includes data on a broad range of crimes. This year, there were two distinct stories in those numbers.
“There’s a trend: maybe the property crimes increased, but the person-to-person crimes have shown a decrease,” Jason Wade, administrative captain of the University of Oregon Police Department, said.
Nine instances of rape were reported in 2020, compared to six in 2019 and 15 in 2018. In 2020, there were three reports of fondling (18 in 2019, 21 in 2018) and one report of stalking (14 in 2019, 28 in 2018), according to the report. These “personal crimes” decreased over the last three years.
Property crimes, however, increased. There were 15 reported motor vehicle thefts in 2020, compared to six in 2019 and 12 in 2018, and 57 burglaries (39 in 2019, 26 in 2018).
Wade attributed the changes in criminal activity to pandemic operations, particularly the decrease in campus population. The reduced number of people on campus meant less accountability from within the community, as there were more “nooks and crannies and those little dark spots” to commit crime without being seen, Wade said. Conversely, fewer people on campus could mean fewer interpersonal crimes due to fewer interpersonal interactions.
There were also fewer fires in 2020 — a total of three resulted in no property damage compared to five fires resulting in $200-2,196 in property damage from 2019 — and no reported hate crimes.
The Clery report includes reports given to UOPD, the Office of the Dean of Students, Safety and Risk Services, the Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance, the Title IX Coordinator, campus security authorities and various law enforcement agencies that provide services to UO properties within their jurisdictions, according to the report.
Because it includes information reported outside of the formal police method, Everitt believes the Clery report accurately represents the number of crimes in the UO community in 2020.
“One of the things that’s really nice about how this campus handles reports of sexual misconduct and other misconduct is that there’s a lot of options available to students and those seeking to make a report,” Everitt said, “They can do so confidentially, and they have various other support resources available to them, as well.”
The majority of the Clery report is composed not of data, but of all the different avenues to report crime and misconduct, the resources for survivors and guidance for prevention.
It conveys any changes made in these areas. The 2020 report reflected changes in the prohibited discrimination and retaliation policies, the process following reports of discrimination and sexual misconduct and emergency notifications, Everitt said.
This includes additional training avenues to prevent discrimination and sexual misconduct.
UO developed a “comprehensive emergency notification system that allows for the use of text messaging, emails, social media, website, UO homepage alerts, digital displays, and/or local media to immediately notify the campus community upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or staff,” according to the report.
Everitt described the report as a “snapshot of campus as whole,” and both Everitt and Wade said the most important takeaway is to understand how to prevent and report crime in the community. UO has options to report anonymously or confidentially, as well as in person.
“I hope that students can go to it and discover the wealth of information that is contained in the report and feel more secure and safe on campus as a result,” Everitt said.
