L.A. and O.C. colleges among six California schools that failed to accurately report campus crimes

Los Angeles and Orange County colleges are among six California schools that failed to comply with federal law by inaccurately reporting on campus crimes, according to a state audit.

Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles and Orange Coast College were found to have inaccurate or incomplete crime statistics, according to the state’s recently released report of the 2023 school year. The other schools were the University of San Diego, Chico State, Imperial Valley College and UC Santa Cruz.

“Because of these errors and omissions, current and prospective students, staff and other stakeholders may have an inaccurate understanding of campus safety,” the report stated.

Mount Saint Mary’s and Orange Coast also failed to comply with federal and state laws because they lacked adequate informational procedures, such as providing desktop manuals that staff can follow when preparing crime reports, and or failing to provide sufficient training on federal law requirements.

Officials at both schools did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Specifically, Mount Saint Mary’s did not track its reportable crime incidents in a central location, which led to the college overreporting 16 of 57 crimes, with an overall error rate of 30%, in the 2022 crime statistics, the state audit found.

Mount Saint Mary’s and Orange Coast had incomplete daily crime logs. The colleges were missing between 17 and 25 crimes from their daily crime logs out of about 60 crimes the state reviewed for each of the six institutions.

All the colleges that were reviewed did not disclose to students, faculty and administrators all campus safety policies, emergency response and evacuation procedures, and programs that federal law requires.

The audit also found that Orange Coast misreported crimes.

Misreporting occurs when a school correctly identifies a crime but does not report it under the correct category as required by federal law or does not correctly document the location of the crime, the state auditor’s report said.

The auditor’s review of 60 crimes at Orange Coast found that the school reported two crimes in the wrong federal category, including an incident of hate crime intimidation that was reported as domestic violence.

“In that incident, a student physically intimidated another student and used derogatory language aimed at the victim’s sexuality while the two were living together in student housing,” according to the report.

Orange Coast reported the incident to the U.S. Department of Education as domestic violence. However, the state auditor’s review of the case narrative suggests that the institution should have reported the incident as a hate crime of intimidation based on sexual orientation.

Every three years the California state auditor conducts a review of several colleges and universities to see if they’re in compliance with the Clery Act, officially known as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act.

The Clery Act, established in 1990, is a consumer protection law that requires colleges and universities to report campus crime data as well as safety policies. These educational institutions must publish an annual security report containing statistics related to specific crimes, such as homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults.

Colleges who receive federal financial aid to record and report campus crime data are obligated to follow the Clery Act and are subject to review by the state auditor.

How the state auditor determines which colleges to review is dependent on several factors including the number of crimes each institution reported to the U.S. Department of Education, the institution’s geographic location, the type of institution and whether the state auditor had previously audited it.

Over the past 21 years, the state auditor has consistently found noncompliance with Clery Act requirements at 41 institutions.

The state auditor’s findings can prompt the Department of Education to issue fines of up to approximately $70,000 for each violation.

In 2020, UC Berkeley was fined $2.35 million for Clery Act violations and for a lack of sufficient administrative capability to oversee its Clery Act reporting.

All six institutions agreed with the state auditor’s conclusions and indicated that they will implement the provided recommendations that include establishing procedures for compiling Clery Act statistics and developing procedures that campus law enforcement or security can follow to completely record the daily crime log, according to the report.