2008 Woodie Awards
Crime rate at MT is public record; can't always access
Editorial Board
Issue date: 7/23/08 Section: Opinions
"In the early morning of April 5, 1986, Jeanne Cleary, a 19-year-old freshman at Lehigh University was suddenly awakened in her dorm room. She was then sexually assaulted and brutally murdered by a fellow student she did not know. Her attacker cut her throat with a broken beer bottle, kicked her, sodomized her, bit her cheeks and breasts and then strangled her until she died."
This case summery is taken from the third edition of "Covering Campus Crime," a manual published by the Student Press Law Center as a tool for college journalists to maintain a strong, ethical and frequent coverage of criminal acts on campuses.
Following Jeanne's murder, her parents discovered that the campus police force had been aware of numerous violent acts committed on campus, of which the student population had remained largely unaware.
To battle this injustice of ignorance, the parents founded a non-profit organization called "Security on Campus, Inc." The group helps other victims of campus crimes and fights for better open record laws to allow public access to safety information.
The law Congress passed, known as the "Jeanne Cleary Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act," requires that campus police stations maintain an updated campus police and security log, and release annual statistic reports of campus crime.
MTSU, like all other universities, holds an open campus police and security log. Like many other university newspapers, Sidelines publishes a list of "crime reports" on a regular basis as a service to our readers and the campus public. We want everyone to be aware.
The job of the police station is to maintain, organize and update its crime log. Unfortunately, that task has left much to be desired and, on more than one occasion, has left the newspaper and our readers with incomplete or no crime briefs whatsoever.
When we went to retrieve the log around 3 p.m. on July 22, we discovered it had not been updated since July 8 - they hadn't even added the briefs they gave us last week. A dispatch attendant grudgingly helped our editor flip through the log and eventually found a log containing an incident from July 14 - buried at the bottom with incident reports from the spring semester.
This case summery is taken from the third edition of "Covering Campus Crime," a manual published by the Student Press Law Center as a tool for college journalists to maintain a strong, ethical and frequent coverage of criminal acts on campuses.
Following Jeanne's murder, her parents discovered that the campus police force had been aware of numerous violent acts committed on campus, of which the student population had remained largely unaware.
To battle this injustice of ignorance, the parents founded a non-profit organization called "Security on Campus, Inc." The group helps other victims of campus crimes and fights for better open record laws to allow public access to safety information.
The law Congress passed, known as the "Jeanne Cleary Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act," requires that campus police stations maintain an updated campus police and security log, and release annual statistic reports of campus crime.
MTSU, like all other universities, holds an open campus police and security log. Like many other university newspapers, Sidelines publishes a list of "crime reports" on a regular basis as a service to our readers and the campus public. We want everyone to be aware.
The job of the police station is to maintain, organize and update its crime log. Unfortunately, that task has left much to be desired and, on more than one occasion, has left the newspaper and our readers with incomplete or no crime briefs whatsoever.
When we went to retrieve the log around 3 p.m. on July 22, we discovered it had not been updated since July 8 - they hadn't even added the briefs they gave us last week. A dispatch attendant grudgingly helped our editor flip through the log and eventually found a log containing an incident from July 14 - buried at the bottom with incident reports from the spring semester.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Matthew Hurtt
posted 7/23/08 @ 9:21 AM CST
This is further proof that the MTSU Police Department is ill-equipped to handle safety on campus by themselves...
Matthew Hurtt
MTSU Parent
posted 7/29/08 @ 7:27 AM CST
It is very important that parents have access to this vital information about the safety of our children. Especially when there are so many gun nuts that want to go about the campus carrying weapons. (Continued…)
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