Search words Duke University Clery Report campus crime rape
✔ Fact Checker here.
The new Clery Report raises a lot of questions. And the answer about the number of sexual assaults is unsatisfactory. Moreover, this morning, Fact Checker is challenging directly the official count of the number of robberies on campus.
✔ Sex first.
Duke maintains that in the past, only officials and faculty were required to report violent sex acts against any victim (not only students.) These acts included rape, forcible touching, a very broad variety of aggressive offenses.
But now more people are mandated to report such crimes if they hear about them, including RA's.
There is no evidence whatsoever that RA's were hearing about violent crime and keeping silent. And that this factor accounts for the jump in the number of sex crimes.
Duke has been dodging behind excuses for years in one crime category or another, explaining the definition of the offense changed, as well as theorizing we are getting reports on things previously under the carpet. There is no evidence to support this theory.
Last year, there was a similar increase in one category, and Dean Joe Gonzalez, who always seems to draw negative assignments so that the boss is left to bask only in the sun, gave The Chronicle a song and dance explanation.
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Now robberies.
Fact Checker challenges the report's statement that seven robberies occurred on campus. That is, a face to face confrontation with a great danger of violence. In each of the cases Deputy Fact Checkers have examined, someone had a gun in his or her face, or in the back of his or her head, and their hands in the air. Duke Police sent out a Clery Alert and were on the scene.
The new Clery Report, released on September 30, which is to say the last day permitted under federal law, covers crimes committed in the 2009 calendar year. For reasons best known in Allen Building, the Duke cover on the report says it is the 2010-11 edition.
Now the report says there were seven robberies.
The problem is, that the police department put out press releases about NINE robberies, not seven. And in two of these, two people were robbed. In one, a student was shot in the abdomen.
If two women were raped at once, I would hope we'd report two rapes. In this case, I would hope we'd report two robberies, so the total is not 7, not 9, but counting victims 11.
I recognize the Clery Act has some fudge factors -- only crime on campus, in nearby areas filled with Dukies and some other locations need be listed. But I have accounted for all that and still get 9 different occurrences and 11 victims.
I look forward to a better explanation from the University. And I hope the Chronicle adds this to its list of questions. FC
