Violent Crime Drops at Harvard

The number of violent crimes on campus plummeted last year, dropping 44 percent, according to annual crime statistics released last week by the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).

Crime rates at Harvard also dropped in several other categories, including burglaries, larcenies, and drug law violations.

The decrease in violent crimes—which include sex offenses, robbery, and aggravated assault—was largely due to a significant decline in the number of forcible sex offenses, which dropped from 30 in 2004 to 12 in 2005.

But HUPD Spokesman Steven G. Catalano warned against finding a trend in last year’s decline in the number of sexual offenses, saying that it could also suggest underreporting of incidents.

“There was a decrease, but it’s not as substantial as it seems,” he said. “Sexual assault is severely underreported on college campuses.”

In addition, the number of total crimes dropped to 528 in 2005 from 597 in 2004—a 12 percent decrease—and from 655 in 2003; the number of burglaries dropped from 372 in 2004 to 327 in 2005; and the number of larcenies dropped slightly, from 185 to 180.

A MATTER OF REPORTING

But while the rate of thefts on campus—in the midst of a downward trend—might appear to be higher than at other schools, the discrepancy is due to a difference in the way the statistics are collected.

“It’s simply a matter of reporting,” said Catalano. “We’re not required by federal mandate to publish our larceny numbers in our report—we do it because we are transparent and have nothing to hide.”

Because the larceny numbers don’t need to be reported, he said, other schools might consider some crimes, which otherwise might be classified as burglaries, larcenies, leading to a higher unreported number and lower reported number.

“In general, the difference between a larceny and a burglary is the element of trespass,” said Catalano. If the theft takes place by someone trespassing, then it is considered a burglary—the crime that has to be reported—whereas a theft in a public area is a larceny.

“When we don’t know definitively who committed the crime, we make the assumption that a theft was committed by a trespasser, thereby making it a burglary,” he said. “I can only surmise that other schools aren’t interpreting it the way that we do.”

While the HUPD document cites 327 burglaries and 180 larcenies taking place on campus in 2005, a similar report released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Police Department cites 71 burglaries for the same time period, and the University of Pennsylvania Police Department noted 72.

But in small print at the bottom of the MIT report, the MIT Police Department concedes that their official table of numbers doesn’t include larcenies. They write that there were in fact 451 larcenies at MIT in 2005—a number more than double HUPD’s statistic.

“It pains us to see how other schools are reporting,” Catalano said. “People look at our burglary numbers and think we have a substantially worse theft problem. But when you look at theft rates, we are comparative and sometimes even lower than other schools.”

‘CLER-ING’ THE AIR

The annual report was released by HUPD as part of the Clery Act, which requires campus police departments to disclose annual crime statistics to provide “students and families, as higher education consumers, with the information they need to make informed decisions,” according to the DOE website.

National statistics are not yet available, however, because not all campus police departments have reported their 2005 numbers to the DOE, which are not due until the end of this week.

The decrease in the number of violent crimes—from 32 in 2004 to 18 in 2005—was accompanied by a significant decrease in the number of arrests for drug law violations, which dropped from 8 to 4.

Catalano said that this decrease was also not due to any larger trends.

“It’s a matter of observing or catching people either in possession of drugs or using drugs on campus,” he said.

The only category in which the number of reported crimes on campus did rise was the number of aggravated assaults, which increased from 2 in 2004 to 5 in 2005.

—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu