MIT Acknowledges Crime Omissions From Annual Report

Harvard is not the only university in Cambridge which has recently come under fire for its inadequate reporting of criminal incidents.

MIT officials yesterday acknowledged they omitted some university-related crimes from the school's annual federal reports from 1992 to 1996.

The incidents occurred in off-campus residences affiliated with the university, such as fraternities and independent living groups.

Federal legislation enacted in 1992 requires every university to publish statistics on crimes which have occurred on campus, or at off-campus sites managed by the school.

MIT Police Chief Anne P. Glavin said the MIT Police Department receives statistics about off-campus sites from the Boston Police Department (BPD).

According to MIT spokesperson Robert Sales, the omissions came to light last month when the BPD verified its records with the MIT police.

The BPD had received a letter from an MIT student publication requesting information about certain incidents.

Miscommunication between the Boston and MIT police departments and a misunderstanding within the MIT Police Department about which incidents must be included in the annual report may have caused the errors, MIT officials said.

MIT Police Chief Anne P. Glavin said that in some cases the BPD "did not give us the correct statistics," but that in a few cases the MIT staff did not report the statistics that it did receive.

Sales stated, "I think the person who was collecting that information did not know that information had to be included in the federal report."

The MIT Police Department is currently compiling the missing statistics, and has already completed a report for 1996. Twelve incidents were omitted from that year's federal report, including six burglaries and one forced sexual encounter.

Glavin said she expects the information for 1992 through 1995 to be complete "within a week or two." She said it will be posted on the Web.

Sales said he believes the difficulties have been successfully resolved. He said, "We now have a clearer line of communication with the Boston Police Department."

MIT has "developed a process to collect those statistics," he said.

Glavin emphasized that the MIT case differs from the recent difficulties of the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).

The HUPD was criticized for failing to report both an alleged rape and the subsequent arrest of Joshua M. Elster '00 in the HUPD blotter.

In contrast to the HUPD omissions, Glavin said the MIT case "has nothing to do with the police log...they are two separate issues."

The incidents were not required to appear in the daily MIT police log because they occurred in Boston, which is outside of the school's jurisdiction.

BPD spokesperson Margot Hill could not be reached for comment yesterday.