How the Clery Act Impacts Colleges and Universities

Congress established the Clery Act after Jeanne Clery, a student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, was sexually assaulted and killed in her campus dormitory in 1986. Prior to the act’s passage, college campuses were not required to disclose campus crime statistics to the public, nor were they obligated to broadcast warnings announcing campus threats. 

In an interview, Tony Casciano, Chief of the Westfield State University Police, discussed the impact the Clery Act has on college institutions: “In the past, crimes occurring on college campuses had no reporting mechanism, so information couldn’t get passed along to students or parents,” he said. “It got swept under the rug, so, when the Clery Act took effect in 1991, it allowed everyone to see what was going on on college campuses. If you want to go to Westfield State, you can look at the crime stats on our university police webpage and see what’s been happening for the past three years.”

For many universities, the Clery Act was only the first step towards more comprehensive and preventive measures to ensure the security of campus communities. “We have quite a few cameras on campus which help us solve crimes,” he said. “It can deter [crimes] because if someone sees a camera, they might say, ‘I’m not going to do that.’” University police officers are also available to instruct crime prevention and safety programs to the WSU community.

Reporting the crime itself also helps to improve safety, as it allows for reactionary protocols, such as investigations, to take place. “It’s important that people on campus report crimes to campus security authorities such as the university police, residential life staff, coaches, athletic directors, Dean of Students... basically anybody who’s involved with the students, they should report the incidents if someone comes to them,” he said. “Let us know, let the Dean of Students know, let someone know.”

The Clery Act also is designed to align campus safety efforts with that of its surrounding city or town.  “At the end of the year, we ask the City of Westfield police of any incidents in the geographic area that we requested,” Casciano said. “If there were any incidents, we would include them in the annual report.”

The Clery Act stipulates that personal information isn’t required in reports, only numbers and locations regarding each crime.

Casciano reiterated the importance of documenting crimes and incidents from all areas of the University: “We get information from Student Conduct, from Title IX, from Human Resources, because not all incidents come to us,” he elaborated. “Some people don’t want to come to the police department. So, we check in with all these [offices] and we only count each incident once, keeping our statistics accurate.”

Edited on August 14, 2023 for accuracy.