Drug and liquor arrests rose on the Tempe campus in 2010, according to the ASU Police Department’s Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics report, released last week.
From 2009 to 2010, the Tempe campus experienced decreases in aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft and robbery, according to the report, which covers the academic school years 2008, 2009 and 2010.
However, from 2009 to 2010, the Tempe campus saw major increases in sex offenses, larceny theft, arson, liquor law and drug law arrests.
ASU Cmdr. Jim Hardina said the department must focus on alcohol enforcement to reverse this trend.
“The biggest crime on campus that affects safety … is alcohol related offenses, and the reason is all violent crime on campus, both here at ASU and every other school in the country, is alcohol related,” Hardina said. “Fighting, sexual assaults and all those things are alcohol related.”
The Tempe campus saw its biggest crime spike in the number of campus drug law arrests with a 32.1 percent increase of 162 arrests in 2009 to 214 in 2010, according to the report. Liquor law arrests increased by 20.5 percent with 459 arrests in 2009 to 553 arrests in 2010.
However, ASU police on the Downtown, West and Polytechnic campuses saw decreases in their liquor law and drug law arrests.
The Polytechnic campus experienced decrease in liquor law arrests from 40 arrests in 2009 to 19 in 2010 and drug law arrests decreased from 8 arrests in 2009 to 4 in 2010, according to the report.
The West campus saw a gradual decrease in liquor law arrests with 17 in 2008, seven in 2009 and three in 2010.
According to the press release, the violent crime rate at ASU was .38 per thousand students and the property crime rate was 17.78 per thousand students. But because the report’s data for student enrollment is from 2009, the data for 2010 is statistically inaccurate based on student population.
Under the Clery Act by the U.S. Congress, every college institution in the nation is required to submit a Jeanne Clery Disclosure report, which is based on all crimes on campus, including residential halls and off-campus and public property owned by the school.
“The act is intended to provide students and their families, as higher education consumers, with accurate, complete and timely information about safety on campus,” said ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg in the release.
Hardina said in addition to submitting the Jeanne Clery Disclosure report, ASU voluntarily submits a similar report to the FBI.
“The benefit to the FBI is the forms, statistics and stats for crime trends that can be used to focus on research and crime prevention and trends on enforcement,” Hardina said.
Reach the reporter at sraymund@asu.edu
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