As required under the Campus Security Act, Johns Hopkins released its 2004 Annual Security Report on Sept. 7. Among its findings, the report cites an overall decrease in crimes but a doubling of liquor law violations from 2002 to 2004.
However, according to campus administrators, one or more of the figures concerning liquor law violations is incorrect.
In 2004, the total number of reported crimes declined from 52 to the previous year's count of 32. By definition, these crimes included more serious offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, auto theft, arson and sex offenses. The data was compiled from reports made directly to Hopkins security as well as to various campus authorities and the Baltimore City Police.
The report found the residence halls almost crime-free; only one burglary and one sex offense were reported. These reported incidence rates are comparable to or lower than that of urban peer institutions such as the University of Chicago or the University of Pennsylvania.
With the notable exception of one murder in 2004, Hopkins' reported on-campus and community crime rates are only a fraction of those of its urban peers.
The report tallied only four on-campus burglaries in 2004, in comparison to 40 at the University of Chicago, which has a comparably sized undergraduate population of 4,400. The seven robberies (all muggings) are a fraction of the University of Pennsylvania's 65 and are on par with suburban Towson University's nine. However, although Penn and Towson are comparable to Hopkins in urban location, each has a significantly larger student population, with 10,000 and 14,000 undergraduates, respectively.
Furthermore, Hopkins recorded a general drop in auto theft, robbery and burglary on and around campus. Auto theft was eliminated from campus in 2004 (the five registered cases being "unauthorized use of utility cars") and car jacking cases down from 12 to seven around campus.
Actual robberies were more than halved from eight cases to three (of the registered seven incidents in 2004, four were thwarted attempts).
Even so, these numbers can be expected to decrease as data from July through September indicated a "significant reduction" compared to the same time period the previous year, according to Edmund Skrodzki, executive director of campus safety and security.
"This reduction is attributed to a continued effort to provide high security visibility through the deployment of patrol officers, off-duty Baltimore Police and bicycle patrols in the areas traveled by the Hopkins University community," Skrodzki said.
Five forcible sex offenses were also reported over the past 3 years. However, the occurrence of sex offenses, notably acquaintance rape influenced by alcohol, is believed to be higher, reported Susan Boswell, dean of student life.
"I think a lot of these incidences aren't reported. ... Just statistically we would guess that the numbers are higher than what is reported," Boswell said.
In contrast, Georgetown University, with almost 5,000 students living on campus, registered 17 such cases in its residence halls in 2004 alone.
"I guess I would say that I'm not comforted by numbers, for every woman, even among that handful, the event is thoroughly traumatizing for the student. I would hope that our smaller numbers are not because women are not coming forward," said Paula Burger, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education.
The report released by the security department counted 679 alcohol violations in 2004, a number more than double the 273 cases in 2002.
According to Boswell, however, there is an error in the report, as the figures she has from ResLife indicated 588 liquor law violations in 2002, 641 in 2003 and 583 in 2004.
All of the report's drug and alcohol violations were found in residence halls.
Boswell believes the report's significantly lower number in 2002 was a computing error resulting form subcategories of the data left out of the total.
Lieutenant Tom Douglas, who compiled this report, could not be reached at press time for comments.
The numbers for alcohol violations vary widely among different school's reports. While referrals for campus disciplinary action (RA write-ups) at Hopkins totaled in the hundreds, no arrests were made. Other schools, such as the similarly size University of Chicago, had only 14 in 2004, and Columbia University reported three.
However, many students find the "party scene" at Johns Hopkins much more sobering.
"I think that people get caught easier at Hopkins, not that we drink more. Security has gotten tighter within the past year, so more students have gotten caught. There's no way that we party less than students at Columbia," said sophomore Ani Rajan.
Boswell agreed in this respect, saying that the demands of the institution have largely confined the drinking scenes to Friday and Saturday nights.
Five weeks into the school year, both Boswell and Burger believe there may be a change in student drinking behavior. By the same time last year, 12 hospitalizations had occurred as a result of drinking. In contrast, there were only four such cases this year.
"It's a lower than usual number of students. ... It's too soon to tell, but the number has been decreasing," said Boswell.
The campus security report may be found at http://www.jhu.edu/~security/cacsa/cacsaintro.htm.
