Numbers suggest certainty, and when it comes to campus crime, everybody wants answers. That’s what the Clery Act set out to reveal: How many rapes, burglaries, assaults? When? Where? Enacted nearly two decades ago, the federal law requires colleges to send the government lengthy reports each year, detailing their policies and tallying their total crimes.
But do statistics keep students safe? As campus security has become a national fixation, some scholars of the Clery Act â?? and officials who must comply with it daily â?? challenge the wisdom of producing timeand labor-intensive reports of dubious value. And they puzzle over a paradox: The law requires them to publish the numbers, but students and their families don’t seem to read them.