There were 152 on-campus liquor law judicial referrals in 2013, down from 177 in 2012, according the Clery Report for the 2013 calendar year, released by the Office of Safety and Security on Wednesday.
The annual Clery Report provides information on certain crimes, civil violations and fires on campus. A judicial referral is any displinary action taken by a College official.
Of the 152 liquor law referrals, 134 occurred in on-campus residences and 18 occurred elsewhere on campus; an additional eight, beyond the 152, occurred on public property within the reporting zone.
There were 55 drug-related judicial referrals in 2013, a significant jump from 34 in 2012. No drug-related arrests were made in either year.
Director of Safety & Security Randy Nichols said that since last spring, 15 students have been caught with Adderall and five with cocaine, so the 2014 numbers will be larger. In 2013, almost all drug-related referrals had to do with marijuana or marijuana concentrates.
For the first time, this year’s report included the categories of dating violence, domestic violence and stalking—during 2013, Bowdoin reported two incidents of dating violence and no instances of domestic violence or stalking.
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013—requires that those categories be included beginning in 2014 Clery Reports.
The report disclosed six forcible sex offenses, up from four reported in 2012. Nichols described sexual assault as a “notoriously underreported” crime and also said sexual violence statistics in reports can include incidents which were reported anonymously. The same section also disclosed zero cases of non-forcible sex offenses—meaning age-related or incestuous offenses.
The reports cover campus property and roads immediately adjoining campus property, as well as sidewalks on those roads. Bowdoin’s Clery Reports therefore do not include areas such as Hannaford’s parking lot or Rite Aid, where alcohol-related citations, such as furnishing alcohol to minors, sometimes occur. The sidewalk outside of an off-campus residence like 83 ½ Harpswell Road—better known as Crack House—is included in each report, but the house itself is not, according to Nichols.
Nichols also noted that some issues, such as harassment and arrests for driving under the influence, are not included in Clery reporting but are included on Security’s online crime log.
The report details zero liquor law arrests from 2011 to 2013, but this number is not necessarily reflective of alcohol use on campus. Off-campus houses, where students have been charged with furnishing alcohol to minors, are outside of the reporting zone, as are Rite Aid and Hannaford.
Not all interactions between campus security and students over alcohol violations result in incidents in the report. For example, a student above the age of 21 may be written up for possessing hard alcohol on campus, but, since no Maine or Brunswick law has been broken, nothing is filed under the Clery Act.
Similarly, a security officer who encounters an intoxicated underage student may decide to warn the student verbally, again resulting in no official report, despite the civil violation of the underage consumption of alcohol.
As all colleges are required to release a Clery Report, it can be used as a way to measure Bowdoin against peer schools in terms of safety. Nichols said that the numbers often depend on factors such as “enforcement policy.”
“We hold students accountable,” Nichols said. “We try to act in a way we think is fair. We treat people the way we would want to be treated in a similar situation.”