Following a review by campus police and the Clery Act Compliance Officer, The University of New Mexico has amended its Annual Security and Fire Safety report to reflect several statistical changes and to add subcategories for certain crimes.
In the amended report, sexual assaults are now listed in two categories: forcible and non-forcible, each with subcategories descriptive of the type of crime: rape, fondling, incest and statutory rape. After the review, one additional rape was added for a total of 12, with seven reports of fondling for the 2014 calendar year. There were no reports of incest or statutory rape. Another new category will record the number of reports that are unfounded, but there was none for that calendar year.
The University named Rob Burford as its first Clery Act Compliance Officer in August. When the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistic, known as the Clery Act, passed in 1990, it originally focused on crime statistics collected by the university police departments. Early on, the Clery Act primarily focused on crime statistics, but over the years, it has become a more extensive and comprehensive report that is now a university-wide effort, requiring input from many campus entities.
“Because of new amendments and requirements, UNM hired a full time compliance officer to oversee our efforts and ensure that we are keeping up with all of the changes,” said Deputy UNM Police Chief Christine Chester, who served as interim Clery coordinator, along with her full time police duties. “As you can see, Rob is carefully reviewing our documents to make sure the information is collected, updated and reported as accurately as possible, so that we are in compliance.”
After evaluating annual safety reports of peer institutions and combing through regulations and suggestions from the federal act, Burford added the subcategories to the UNM report and updated the statistics to fit the matching categories.
“Any time that additional scrutiny finds a change in the numbers, we will incorporate those changes into the affected year’s report, so that it reflects as accurately as possible the amount and types of crime on campus,” Burford said.
Other changes in the report statistics for 2014 include one additional aggravated assault for a total of 16 and three additional drug law violations for a total of 12 arrests. Some crimes were removed from the public property category after review of information given by Rio Rancho police determined they occurred on campus, not on adjacent public property.
Burford is encouraging students, parents, faculty and staff to review the report, which is released each year in October and posted on the UNMPD website. A link can also be found at, Campus Safety. Along with the crime stats, the report also contains information about how to report and prevent crimes on campus, as well as all of the resources that UNM offers to make the campus safer.