The University of Los Angeles and Orange County is one of six California schools that failed to comply with federal law by inaccurately reporting campus crimes, according to a state audit.
Crime statistics at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles and Orange Coast College were found to be inaccurate or incomplete, according to the state’s recently released report for the 2023 school year. Other schools include the University of San Diego, Chico State, Imperial Valley College and UC Santa Cruz.
“As a result of these errors and omissions, current and future students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders may have an inaccurate understanding of campus safety,” the report states.
Mount St. Mary’s and Orange Shore also failed to comply with federal and state laws because they lacked adequate information procedures, such as providing a desk manual that staff could follow when preparing crime reports, or failed to provide adequate information about federal legal requirements. training.
Officials from both schools did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.
Specifically, the state audit found that Mount Saint Mary College did not track its reportable crimes in a central location, which led to the college overreporting 16 of 57 crimes in its 2022 crime statistics, an overall error The rate is 30%.
The daily crime log for Mount St. Mary’s and Orange Coast is incomplete. Of the approximately 60 crimes the state reviewed for each of the six institutions, 17 to 25 were missing from the universities’ daily crime records.
None of the colleges reviewed failed to disclose to students, faculty, and administrators all campus security policies, emergency response and evacuation procedures, and plans required by federal law.
The audit also found Orange Coast misreported crimes.
False positives occur when schools correctly identify crimes but fail to report them in the correct categories required by federal law or do not properly record the location of a crime, the state audit reported.
Auditors’ review of 60 crimes in Orange Coast found that two crimes reported by the school fell into the wrong federal category, including a hate crime intimidation incident that was reported as domestic violence.
“In that incident, one student physically threatened another student and used derogatory language regarding the victim’s sexual orientation while the two were living in residence halls,” the report said.
Orange Coast reported the incident to the U.S. Department of Education, calling it domestic violence. However, a review of the case narrative by the state auditor indicated that the agency should have reported the incident as a hate crime of intimidation based on sexual orientation.
Every three years, California auditors review several colleges and universities to see if they are complying with the Clery Act, formally known as the Jeanne Clery Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Disclosure Act.
The Clery Act of 1990 is a consumer protection law that requires colleges and universities to report campus crime data as well as safety policies. These educational institutions are required to publish an annual safety report that contains statistics related to specific crimes such as homicide, robbery and aggravated assault.
Colleges that receive federal financial aid to record and report campus crime data are obligated to comply with the Clery Act and be subject to review by state auditors.
How the state auditor determines which colleges to review depends on several factors, including the number of crimes each institution reports to the U.S. Department of Education, the institution’s geographic location, the type of institution and whether the state auditor has previously audited it.
Over the past 21 years, state auditors have consistently found 41 agencies that were not complying with Clery Act requirements.
The state auditor’s findings could prompt the Department of Education to impose fines of up to about $70,000 per violation.
In 2020, UC Berkeley was fined $2.35 million for Clery Act violations and lack of adequate administrative capacity to oversee its Clery Act reporting.
The report said all six institutions agreed with the state auditor’s conclusions and said they would implement the recommendations provided, including establishing procedures for compiling Clery Act statistics and developing procedures that campus law enforcement or security departments can follow. , to keep a complete daily crime log.
