University Police Services demonstrated a reduction in all crime, except alcohol violation arrest, in the annual security report, looking over a nearly vacant 2020 school year.
“To say that we caused all that, I can’t support that, but to say we had reduced traffic on campus because of COVID would be a true statement,” said Tod Miller, University Police Services, UPD, Assistant Chief. “Our stats did go down while our campuses were only partially open, but we also improved patrols, performance, and we had folks out there doing more active things for the community as well.”
The annual report is a lengthy document that includes a variety of resources for students to use if found in a number of unfortunate circumstances. This report is prepared to comply with the Jeanne Clery disclosure of campus security policy and crime statistics act, where the statistics come from other departments on campus.
The report, specifically for UNLV, highlights the many resources available, mainly by the Care Center, which is located on the second floor of Student Services Complex-A, room 255. They advocate for prevention and awareness of sexual assault and their 24-hour hotline, (702) 895-0602, gives students a chance to speak with trained volunteer victim advocates. The hotline works with the police department, social services, campus organizations and the administrative office.
A majority of the reports defines and describes what sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking is. Additionally, they’ve included how a report may proceed and what evidence would be ideal to support their case.
While sexual assaults were at a low in 2020, with rape, statutory rape and incest at zero, there were still 10 cases of fondling on-campus and in student housing, compared with the 25 cases in 2019. Domestic violence has hardly changed. In 2020, there were nine cases, while in 2019 there were 11.
Burglaries have gone down every year since 2018, according to the report. In 2018, there were 57 burglaries, and by 2019, there were nearly half the amount of cases with 30 burglaries. In 2020, there were eight burglaries that took place. Miller would like to see all the case numbers at zero, but he believes the added patrols and presence has something to do with the reduced case number.
“Everything went down,” Miller said. “Some of that is resulting from increased patrol areas as well as limited people on campus.”
With the discrepancy of occupation compared with 2019, Miller suggested accounting for occupancy as only case numbers are reported and not looked at alongside with the population in their jurisdiction.
Miller would still suggest that the data collected can be compared to a semester that was in full-swing, like in 2019. The only caveat would be to explain that there were some differences in the campus population.
The report did show an increase in alcohol violation arrests on campus and student housing. In 2019, there were eight arrests, but in 2020, there were 18 arrests.
“Folks who are drinking in the dorms or underage drinking and then have a party, for example, we get notified of a noise complaint, we show up, knock on the door, and lo and behold, there’s a bunch of folks and alcohol,” Miller said. “We look around the room and go, ‘Well, some of you folks don’t look 21, let’s check some ID’s.’”
