Amid Decreases, Robberies and Aggravated Assaults Rise

The number of robbery and aggravated assault reports on and around campus increased last year, while most other indicators of crime remained unchanged or dropped, according to statistics released by the Harvard University Police Department.

And yesterday in a press release, Insite Security, a private security company, reported the results of a study that found that Harvard’s rate of “forcible sex offenses” was more than four times the national average and that the burglary rate was the highest among MIT, Stanford, Duke, the University of Chicago, and the Ivy League.

The “Insite Ivy League Crime Report,” which analyzed crimes occuring on college campuses and their vicinity in 2008, found Harvard’s burglary rate to be 11.06 offenses per 1,000 people and its rate of forcible sex offenses—which includes any sex-related offense involving force—to be 1.32 offenses per 1,000 people.

The national average rate for burglary was 7.31, and the average rate for the category of sexual crimes—defined, in this case, as forcible rape offenses—was 0.29, according to the report, which cited data from the United States Department of Education and the FBI, as well as university sources.

“Colleges have historically underreported crimes that happen on campus,” Christopher E. Falkenberg, Insite president, wrote in a press release. “Parents are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars sending their children to institutes of higher learning and in return should expect a safe environment both on campus and off.”

But HUPD spokesman Steven G. Catalano characterized the reported burglary rate as misleading, writing in an e-mail that HUPD classifies the majority of its property crimes as burglaries, which he called “a very conservative approach.” Larcenies, another property crime, are similar to burglaries but do not involve trespassing.

“We feel when you look at property crime as a whole, our rates are not much different than any other Ivy or local school,” he said.

And he attributed the heightened rate of forcible sex offenses—which, in three-quarters of the schools Insite analyzed, were higher than the national average—to a high rate of reporting at Harvard due to a “a solid support network for victims of sexual assault.”

Reported rates of rape and fondling in 2009 have been in line with past years, according to the statistics released by HUPD, but, from 2008 to 2009, the number of aggravated assaults doubled from 14 to 28 and the number of robberies increased from 16 to 29.

Catalano wrote that the increases “occurred on the city streets immediately surrounding our campus” and that HUPD “is concerned about any increase in criminal activity.”

Meanwhile, the number of simple assaults—which the FBI defines as assaults that do not involve dangerous weapons or result in serious injuries—on and around campus decreased from 27 to 19, and the number of drug-related arrests fell from 23 to 6, which can be attributed to a change in Mass. law that decriminalized the posession of small amounts of marijuana, according to Catalano.

The release of the statistics is mandated by the Clery Act, a federal law that requires a yearly disclosure of campus crime.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.