According to data which is gathered on crime and law violations and listed onto different reports, not much has changed in the amount of crime or law violation activity on and around campus.
An annual safety and security report for crime and disciplinary statistics for 2014, and the daily crime log for 2015 showed little changes in these violations across the board.
The two main law violations which were reported in these two reports in between the past year and this year are alcohol and drug violations.
There hasn’t been much of any increase or decrease even with the fairly new campus policy on possession of marijuana.
“It speaks to the 18-22 year old’s mindset. It does speak heavily on the culture of the community, of the nature of their sense on the use of alcohol and the use of drugs,” Longwood Chief of Police, Robert Beach continued, “There’s a percentage of young people that will come here, either they haven’t been exposed to it, and they get caught up in it for a period of time, or they have been and this is where they think they can come and do those things.”
These top violations are not completely a surprise since universities and colleges are known to have these issues.
“I think if you check any university crime statistics in the country, you’re going to find the same thing. Drugs and alcohol are going to be the two major things,” said Beach.
One issue that these reports have are the changes in law and definitions for different violations. This can change the perception of crime on campus through these reports. Beach says the main change in laws regarding definition for different violations is related to Title IX.
“We haven’t seen a significant influx in any of the stuff that we haven’t normally seen, except in all the areas that are touched by Title IX. Once Title IX started to come out, the requirement for reporting and capturing information was going to skyrocket around those areas,” said Beach.
The confusion with different definitions of these violations may be cleared up with a new crime analysis program for the campus police, which will help to clearly identify trends in different types of crimes and violations.
“We’re in the process of a great partnership with the town of Farmville doing a crime analysis. We’re attaching crime analysis to our records management system. It’s a very powerful program that will allow us to be able to not only identify trends, but to predict trends based on historical data and current data,” said Beach.
This data will turnover every 24 hours, allowing university officials to see new data every day. The program has been in the process of being integrated for three months and the campus police are currently waiting on the program company to fully connect with the records management system. Beach said that this will probably be done in the next couple of weeks.
The program is on schedule officially run next semester.
