Since 2013, the Chicago Police Department has reported 873 violent crimes in Loyola University’s jurisdiction while the school’s Campus Safety Department reported only 205 incidents in the same area.
In addition to discrepancies in numbers, reports from Loyola’s dedicated Campus Safety police force often contain missing or inaccurate information, according to the Loyola Phoenix.
Many of the withheld violent crimes occurred within a five-minute walk from the Chicago campus where the majority of off-campus students live.
Some of the discrepancies in the reporting numbers include:
- CPD reported 83 assaults and batteries and Loyola reported 11
- CPD reported 114 robberies and Loyola reported 21
- CPD reported 55 crimes with guns and Loyola reported 18
- CPD reported 37 sex crimes and Loyola reported 22
Of the almost 1,000 total violent crimes reported, only 60 were reported by both CPD and Loyola.
Campus Safety Chief Thomas Murray says the crimes weren’t intentionally underreported and it is normal for CPD to respond to more incidents than Campus Safety.
“We have a good relationship with them. They’re good information-sharers, but they don’t send us everything,” says Murray.
However, almost half of the violent crimes Campus Safety labeled as “handled by another jurisdiction” – meaning both departments responded – weren’t in CPD’s records at all. Some of the crimes include 12 armed robberies near campus and a sexual assault in a residence hall.
Mira Krivoshey, a sexual assault advocate at Loyola’s Wellness Center, says the discrepancies could be caused because assault survivors have the choice to report it to Campus Safety or CPD.
A recent sexual assault in the school’s Simpson Living and Learning Center, which was listed by Campus Safety as “handled by another jurisdiction”, was reported by the CPD at a different address than where Campus Safety reported it.
In another instance, it took Campus Safety over a month to report a shooting that occurred less than three blocks from the campus on September 4. A Loyola student who witnessed the shooting gave his account to two Campus Safety officers who documented the discussion.
Under the Clery Act, violent crimes need to be logged within two days of an incident being reported.
Campus Safety Sergeant Tim Cunningham says the incident was not logged due to a software update. However, Chief Murray later said the incident was left out of the log because of a “slight change” that was being made to the crime log system but was later abandoned.
“Withholding information from one’s daily crime log could be in violation of Clery Act regulations if the reason for withholding is not deemed justifiable by the Department of Education’s Clery Compliance Team,” says Laura Egan of the Clery Center. “But there is no definitive way to assert that at this time in regards to the specific situation you are describing without additional context about the investigation and what actions your institution’s police department did or did not take.”
Campus Safety is only required by law to record crimes that have been reported to their department.
