Crime report differences confuse, insult

Two reports detailing crime at VCU in 2007 were released recently and contain statistics that conflict, but the differences are not a mistake.

Data found in the FBI 2007 Uniform Crime Report is collected differently from the data found in VCU’s 2008 Campus Safety Report and has caused some confusion among readers.

“There are issues with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports that make it easy to misinterpret the numbers,” Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration John Bennett stated in an e-mail. “The FBI report captures incident data from any police department that responds to a reportable crime regardless of where the crime occurred or who was involved.”

Bennett says if Richmond Police respond to a crime on or near campus, the FBI lists the crime in city statistics, not VCU statistics. If VCU Police respond to a crime off campus, the crime appears in the VCU reports regardless of whether a VCU student or employee was involved.

“They tell you only how many crimes of each type that a police department responded to,” Bennett said. “Deriving crime rates from it would be really misleading.”

Nursing major Christina Epps says she found the FBI-released statistics confusing; not just for VCU, but also for Virginia Tech.

The FBI report lists only two incidences of murder on Virginia Tech’s campus in 2007, the year Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty before killing himself.

“There’s only two?” Epps said. “That’s definitely misleading.”

While the Richmond division of the FBI was unable to comment on the details of the report, the FBI’s Web site states data presented in the report reflects the Hierarchy Rule, requiring only the most serious offense in a multiple-offense criminal incident be counted.

“I am actually insulted the FBI only lists two murders on the Virginia Tech campus,” said Faris Ostrowski, a forensic biology major.

Ostrowski was a student at Virginia Tech during the campus shootings in April 2007. She says she understands why the FBI only lists the murders as two events but she finds the statistic misleading.

“It is still a very touchy subject,” Ostrowski said. “Especially to think history is being written remembering the day as though only two murders took place. As someone just reading the statistics, not knowing anything about the murders, I would have no idea 32 lives (were lost).”

Colleges and universities nationwide also are required to release their own crime statistics under Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act.

“The Clery report captures incidents within reasonable proximity to VCU’s two campuses,” Bennett said. “It takes some closer examination to understand what’s going on.”

Data include crime statistics for the past three years occurring on-campus, in institution-residential facilities, in non-campus buildings or on public property. Clery data must also indicate which crimes, if any, are hate crimes.

Virginia Tech’s Clery report lists 32 counts of murder or non-negligent manslaughter on the campus in 2007.

“We lost 33 Hokies that day,” Ostrowski said. “The 32 members of the community that had their lives taken from them should each be remembered separately. Even Cho, though he did a horrible thing, he was still one of us.”

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report is available online at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/. VCU’s Campus Safety Report is online at http://www.vcu.edu/police/campussafetyreport2008.pdf and data released under the Clery Act can be found at http://www.vcu.edu/police/CleryHome.html.

Neal Wyatt contributed to this report.