Ignored

University officials delay in forwarding sex-related crimes to police

By Megan Jones

University officials delay in forwarding sex-related crimes to police officials

University officials neglected to forward student reports of sex offenses to University police for months, despite the requirement that all sex crimes be reported immediately, according to a CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini analysis and interviews with the police department.

Massmails few, far between reported sex crimes

See how the University of Illinois police department evaluates what sex-related crimes are sent out in mass emails to alert the public.

Disparities mar published sex crime numbers

At least 423 sex-related crimes have been reported to the University of Illinois Police Department since 2010. So far, only 86 of those crimes have been included in the University’s annual security reports, meaning just one-in-five sex crimes have been reported to the public in a six-year period.

University officials delay in forwarding sex-related crimes to police

On Sept. 26, 2016, a female University of Illinois student reported to a University employee that she had been the victim of a sexual offense two nights earlier. On that Friday night, she went to Brother’s Bar & Grill, and the next thing she remembered was waking up in her apartment realizing several of her possessions were stolen, including her laptop.

She also remembered that she had been assaulted.

But a report filed by the employee to the Title IX office on Sept. 26 didn’t make it to the University police department until Dec. 9.

Another student reported to a University employee that she had been sexually assaulted at a fraternity house, after drinking heavily at a campus bar and being promised a safe place to sleep. The employee filed a report on Oct. 9, but the report did not reach University Police until Dec. 9.

On Oct. 13, 2016, a female student reported to a University employee that the previous weekend she attended a concert, and an unknown audience member behind her made unwanted contact with her. By the time she turned around with pepper spray, the alleged offender ran away. Again, the employee’s report filed immediately with the Title IX office was not forwarded for almost two months.

University officials neglected to forward student reports of sex offenses to University police for months, despite the requirement that all sex crimes be reported immediately, according to a CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini analysis and interviews with the police department.

In fact, on Dec. 9, 2016, 15 of the year’s 89 alleged sex-related crimes were reported to the police by Title IX after a reminder email was sent to the Title IX office, campus security authorities and police departments. The dates of the 15 cases ranged from Dec. 6 as far back as Sept. 13.

The reminder email, obtained by CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini through a Freedom of Information request, was sent on Nov. 16, 2016, said with the release of the Department of Education’s findings on Penn State. “It is imperative that you fully understand what an important role you play on our campus and with our compliance efforts.”

“We contacted them after we got all those, and we said, ‘What are you doing?’” said Jennifer Payan, compliance coordinator for the University police department.

The Title IX office is supposed to ensure the University complies with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination in education on the basis of sex. Staff members are mandated reporters for sex-related crimes.

The Women’s Resources Center is another mandated reporter and has also delayed in filing reports on sex-related crimes to University police. After Dec. 9, the Women’s Resources Center sent over 10 additional reports. Alex Howard, records clerk, also said there are instances where the University of Illinois Police will receive a stack of reports from Champaign Police Department all on the same day that were filed earlier with Champaign Police.

“When we see that we knew something was broken in our system, so we gone in and try to communicate with Women’s Resource Center and have been for a while about the need for timeliness and the consequences for something that should have had a warning (Campus Safety Notice) and it didn’t,” said Tony Brown, deputy chief of the University police department.

All agencies are supposed to report crimes to the police department immediately. Yet, only 148, or one-in-three, have been reported within a week of the alleged crime, impeding police investigations and reducing the likelihood that a Campus Safety Notice is sent out.

A Campus Safety Notice is a mass email to University faculty, staff and students warning them about a crime.

Some of the delay can be traced to students not reporting crimes immediately, but CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini found a lack of timely reporting from campus security authorities, police jurisdictions and the Title IX office to the University police is another factor.

Any reports submitted from Title IX and campus security authorities are not investigated by the police as crimes but instead used for recordkeeping and sending out Campus Safety Notices that warn the campus of an ongoing threat.

A review of documents shows the Title IX office has often not reported in a timely manner. The delays led to meetings and conversations between departments in 2016, Brown said.

“This has been a concern in the past, and it’s why we had many conversations,” Brown said. “Every year, our processes get better and better.”

The 115 sex-related crimes reported to University police in the first four months of 2017 has already surpassed the 89 crimes reported to police in all of 2016.

The U.S. Department of Education can fine a university $35,000 for each violation — that is, failure to report an incident — and the University can be audited at any time. For example, if an assault was reported to a jurisdiction and never passed along to university police but deserved a Campus Safety Notice, that could warrant a fine, Brown said.

The University has never been audited, but large scales fines occurred after audits at Penn State University, which was fined $2.4 million in November 2016; Eastern Michigan University, which was fined $360,000 in December 2007; and at Virginia Tech, which was fined $55,000 in March 2011.

“Universities across the nation are struggling to develop systems to ensure that we comply with the reporting and dissemination of sexual assault cases,” said Danielle Morrison, Title IX and disability coordinator, in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

She said in the email: “The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a large and complex organization with hundreds of avenues through which students can report information and connect with support resources.”

Morrison said the University continues to identify ways to improve its reporting, including hiring a full-time Title IX coordinator to focus on timely reporting. Previously, the Title IX coordinator was also in charge of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Access.

Morrison added: “Of course even one missed warning would not be acceptable, and I will continue to work with CSAs to ensure that they understand the importance of sharing documentation quickly while still maintaining their focus on connecting the survivor with resources and support.”

Massmails few, far between sex crimes

For three years, the University of Illinois police department failed to send out mass email alerts on sex-related crimes, despite requirements to do so by the U.S. Department of Education, according to a CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini analysis.

University police acknowledged in recent interviews that the mass emails, known as “massmails,” did not go out to the campus students, faculty and staff from 2011 to 2013. The department did not view acquaintance sexual assault as an ongoing threat, said Jennifer Payan, compliance coordinator for the University police department.

Since then, the police conferred with other universities and found other campuses were sending out alerts when there were allegations of acquaintance sexual assault. Campus police also found that other institutions had been fined by the Department of Education for not sending out such alerts, said Tony Brown, deputy chief of the University police department.

In 2013, 48 sex-related crimes were reported, but no mass emails were sent. In 2011 and 2012, there were 29 and 26 sex-related crimes reported, but no mass emails sent.

Police send out alerts if they believe the crime is an ongoing threat, if it’s within the geographical area defined by the Clery Act and if the assault was reported in the last seven days. The geographical area consists of University buildings and buildings of official organizations recognized by the university, such as a fraternity house.

The federal act requires detailed reporting on crime on college campuses across the country, including a daily crime log, of which the latest 60 days must be made public.

Since 2014, University police have sent out 17 alerts on sex-related crimes out of a total of 299 through April 30.

Police said they do not send out alerts on most of the sex-related crimes because they occur in private apartments and other off-campus locations, even though they involve students.

In addition, the release of information depends largely on aspects of each crime and on the on-duty police lieutenant’s judgment, Brown said. Notices also are not sent out if the suspects have already been apprehended.

“We ask ourselves, ‘How we can send out the notice without identifying who the victim is, and that is a struggle we go through every time we do this?’” Brown said. “We are stuck erring on the side of caution, especially because we don’t want to get fined and want to comply with the Department of Education.”

The U.S. Department of Education can fine a university $35,000 for each violation of the Clery Act. A violation is when a university fails to report an incident in a timely manner. The University can be audited at any time.

Brown added: “I wish they would just come out and say this is when we want you to do these things. They say to make the determination ourselves, and we have the authority to make the decisions, but then they come back and Monday morning quarterback and fine everyone.”

Thus far, the University has not been fined.

The following map tracks all-sex related crimes since 2010. However, University police cannot identify the locations of one-fourth of the crimes because either the victim did not know the location or was unwilling to share a location.

Location, location, location

In addition to the lack of alerts, the locations of sexual assaults are often vague in Campus Safety Notices. Specific residence halls and fraternity names are rarely shared in order to protect the victims’ identity, police said.

It may appear that most sexual assaults occur in residence halls or fraternity houses because of the alerts. However, it is only because those locations are covered under the Clery Act and trigger the need for a warning.

However, when students discuss wanting to know where sex offenses occurred, fraternities remain one of the most talked about.

Brown said students interested in the specific locations can sometimes informally identify the victim.

“Either they saw police there, or they know that there is only a limited number of people in the location, at that fraternity at that time, so they can pretty much figure out who made this report,” Brown said.

But throughout the year, students have complained on social media about how Campus Safety Notices do not include fraternities’ names. The Campus Safety Notices are meant to inform students of crimes that are ongoing threats, but many argued online that students cannot assess risk factors if they don’t know where the crimes occurred.

Harold Zhu wrote online: “Perhaps student groups would be forced to police their members more strictly. I’m sure none of the founders intended for a gathering of rapists. At the end of each Campus Safety Notice it reads “we care” — care about who? Perhaps not everyone.”

Jessica Colbert, graduate student, said victims should always be protected. However, she believes the police should name the fraternity.

“Too often, we focus on who these things happen to instead of knowing who did them,” she said. “I’m not saying we should make the rapist infamous, but we could put some accountability. I feel like we are protecting the rapist under the guise of saying we want to protect the victim.

Police respond

Police Chief Jeff Christensen said the intent of the alerts is good, but the department “can’t win if they do or don’t put them out.”

“Either way, we are going to get a bang,” Christensen said at an April 7 panel on Campus Safety Notices. “Sometimes I feel like Chief Brody in Jaws running around answering the phone, putting up signs. And we all feel that way. We are all answering calls.”

Brown said the department tries to be responsive and follow feedback, but that it often adds more confusion.

On Aug. 20, it was reported that a student was sexually assaulted at a fraternity house in Champaign, and students complained the police did not release an address. Two days later, police released the address of Gregory Place apartments where an alleged acquaintance sexual assault occurred.

Students then began expressing concerns about why police would name an apartment building but not a fraternity, Brown said. On Aug. 25, a fraternity house was identified on South First Street in Champaign.

In the Aug. 25 assault, students could identify the location as either Delta Chi or Alpha Rho Chi, which are the only two fraternity houses on South First Street, and a Facebook post spread with the hashtag #FratsMustFall.

“We thought there were multiple fraternities there, but there were only two. Then, we started to get upset calls from the fraternity it didn’t happen at,” Brown said. “We are trying to listen and take concerns seriously and make adjustments as we can but sometimes we just can’t.”

Timing of reports

University police intend to send out a notice within two to three hours of being notified of a crime.

If a stranger is believed to have committed a sexual assault, then police will generally send out a notice. If it was from someone known to the victim, then they use other criteria to see if it is an ongoing threat, such as a repeated location or offender.

Brown said lately the department has been erring to send reports out more frequently “just to be safe.” In 2015, the department sent out on four alerts on sex-related crimes. In 2016, they sent out nine. And in 2017, they sent out three in the first four months.

“These aren’t easy and it’s not cut and dry if it’s an ongoing threat,” Brown said. “We often think, what would the Department of Education want us to do as opposed to what we necessarily think sometimes.”

Lt. Joan Fiesta said the Campus Safety Notices provide information on resources and education on sexual assaults to try to protect and allow people to recognize bad behavior before assaults occur. She said this aspect is almost just as important as notifying people of the crime itself.

Policy concerns

Brown said the department is always trying to improve procedures and seeks advice from students and the Women’s Resource Center to identify best practices for their policy.

Molly McLay, assistant director of the Women’s Resources Center, said the office is in constant communication with University police and the Title IX advisory committee. They discuss topics, such as the policy on what information is released through safety notices. When the Clery Act changed and expanded its rules a year ago, the groups met to determine what information constitutes needing a timely warning.

Location is not as important for students because there are many assaults that go unreported. If students only focus on where crimes were reported, they could end up in a dangerous situation at another place, McLay said.

“I worry students could assume this is the place it happens, and there could be finger pointing of calling out a fraternity and avoiding it, and thinking everywhere else is safe. When in reality, sexual assaults do happen in many places where we don’t know exactly where it happens,” she said.

She worries naming the location could lead students to only look at the “bad guys” instead of “recognizing the spotlight is on all of us to hold each other accountable for those behaviors.”

“We get feedback when we send these out all the time, and we have people calling saying we are giving locations for everything except fraternity houses, or we are doing this or that,” Brown said. “We are trying to be consistent with how we do this, try to listen to feedback and try to provide as much as we can without identifying.”

Ultimately, Brown said the last thing the University wants to do is re-victimize victims.

Disparities mar published sex crime numbers

At least 423 sex-related crimes have been reported to the University of Illinois Police Department since 2010, according to a CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini review of police daily crime logs.

So far, only 86 of those crimes have been included in the University’s annual security reports, meaning just one-in-five sex crimes have been reported to the public in a six-year period.

The reports generally lag behind by about 10 months and do not include sex-related crimes occurring off-campus.

Officials have long said that sex offenses are underreported to authorities on campus, just as they are nationwide. But it has not been apparent that University officials are unable to track the number of sex-related crimes reported to them.

The number of offenses that are reported to officials is difficult to count because there is no one particular statistic that shows the true scope, law enforcement officials say.

Instead, there is a haphazard system involving multiple University offices, police jurisdictions and unreliable reporting.

“It really makes it difficult because nothing really matches up, does it?” said Tony Brown, a deputy chief of the University of Illinois Police Department.

Over the past six months, CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini sought to determine a more accurate count of sex-related crimes reported to University police through daily crime logs since 2010.

To create a more accurate database, CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini analyzed the University police daily crime log, annual security reports and reports from other University offices. It also examined University and federal reporting practices and policies and conducted interviews with people who oversee compliance on campus. The first-of-its-kind database resulted in a more complete accounting of sex-related crimes that showed a stark difference between the logs and the annual reports.

Among the findings

* At least 423 sex-related crimes have been reported to the University of Illinois police department since 2010 by local police, campus security authorities, the Title IX office and victims.
* The number of sex crimes reported has increased significantly in recent years. So far in 2017, 115 sex-related crimes have been reported, already surpassing the total of 89 crimes reported in 2016 and doubling the number of 54 reported in 2015.
* In 2011 and 2012, Champaign police forwarded the most reports, but reports from campus security authorities grew from 2015 onward. In 2017, 84 percent of reports came from security authorities.
* University police cannot identify the locations of one-fourth of the crimes because either the victim did not know the location or was unwilling to share a location.
* During the 2015-2016 school year, the Office of Student Conflict Resolution was informed of 114 cases of sexual misconduct. As of early April, the office has already been informed of 116 for 2016-2017.
* All sex-related crimes are supposed to be reported to the police department immediately. Yet, only 148, or a little better than one-in-three, have been reported within a week of the alleged crime, slowing police investigations and reducing the likelihood that a Campus Safety Notice is sent out.

When the University of Illinois Police Department was asked to verify these numbers, Brown said he would not be able to.

“There’s no way that we could do that,” Brown said. “At least in no short period of time, to review if those numbers were all accurate. We don’t have that searching capability compared to the daily crime log. We’d have to look at each individual case.”

Beyond the annual security report

The Clery Act is known as the definitive guide to crime reporting on college campuses across the country.

But police say cloudy guidelines in this federal mandatory crime reporting law leave campus officials scrambling to document the crimes, whether it involves sending out a Campus Safety Notice “massmail” or ensuring the police department receives reports from campus safety authorities, the Title IX office and Urbana and Champaign police departments.

Each school is mandated to publish an annual security report, which documents the number of crimes committed on campus. For years, University of Illinois officials have pointed to this guide as the number of sex offenses reported. But this number is not indicative of all the crimes reported.

For example, in 2015, there were 54 sex offenses reported to Uuniversity police; only 16 were included in the annual security report.

In 2014, there were 41 reports and only 14 in the annual security report.

The annual security report only encompasses so much. Instead of covering the entire campus community, Clery geography only includes University property, such as campus buildings, University Housing or a building of a student organization recognized by the University, such as a fraternity house.

However, these areas capture just a portion of the day-to-day lives of most students, who go to bars, live in apartments and houses and attend parties off campus.

Additionally, Clery numbers only include rape, fondling, statutory rape and incest. The CU-CitizenAccess analysis included all sex-related crimes reported, including the charges of sexual assault, abuse, offense, misconduct and harassment, according to state statutes.

“The intent of Clery is fabulous, but the handbook is so big and it keeps growing,” Police Chief Jeff Christensen said at an April 7 panel about Campus Safety Notices. “Someone really needs to look into it and see what is effective and what isn’t because some things could be expanded and I don’t understand the purpose of other things.”

The Clery Act has a lesser known, but more effective, requirement to see crimes that involve students – the crime log. The log includes any crimes occurring to students, faculty and employees within patrol jurisdiction. This includes all crimes reported to the University of Illinois Police Department, including reports from other departments and campus security authorities.

The alleged crimes are posted online in a PDF file for 60 days after a crime is reported, and this information is not reported in aggregate.

To find the number, CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini requested the crime logs since 2010. The logs are created in electronic spreadsheets, but the police department would only give PDF copies, which were unable to be placed into a database. They said they delete the spreadsheets, which would allow relatively easy analysis by the police, journalists or the public.

Because of the deletions, CU-CitizenAccess and The Daily Illini staff then hand-typed each report back into a spreadsheet and selected all sex-related crimes.

The total number of crimes is still likely low, Brown said. All other organizations, such as the Champaign Police Department, forward sex-related crimes to the university police. If they do not forward the report, it will not be on the log, Brown said.

University officials said it’s not uncommon to see reports from the Champaign Police Department that should have been forwarded but were not.

Rise of sexual assaults

Even though the number of sex-related crimes reported in the first four months of 2017 has surpassed totals from in any other year, police don’t think sex offenses are on the rise, said University of Illinois Police Lt. Joan Fiesta.

“With different avenues for sexual assault reporting, we hope to see an increase,” Fiesta said. “That sounds strange to say that, but we have a lot of people who are sitting in silence without resources.”

Instead, Fiesta said reporting is encouraged more and supportive resources are promoted.

“There is a huge shift right now to report them, and we are trying to give that voice to community and campus members,” Howard said. “It was at the forefront of President Obama and people have more reporting options now, such as reporting anonymously.”

Molly McLay, assistant director of the Women’s Resources Center, said more than half of sexual assaults are never reported to law enforcement, and on college campuses the number rises to 90 percent.

According to the Association of American Universities, it is estimated that one-in-five women nationally will be sexually assaulted during their undergraduate careers — this totals to 4,090 undergraduates on the University of Illinois campus in 2016.

One-in-16 undergraduate males, or 1,526 undergraduate males in 2016, are estimated to be assaulted.

Sexual assault has drawn a lot of attention on campus in recent years, with the student-led “It’s On Us” campaign even attracting a visit from then-Vice President Joe Biden. Haven, a new online program to educate students on bystander intervention, along with other campaigns to promote anonymous reporting, has all been credited for a rise in numbers.

————————————————————————————————————————————-

This article, in its original form, can be found here: View Story