Campus crime reports may be much higher than what is reported by colleges and universities across the nation, according to the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA).

Chuck Cychosz, manager of Safety and Health Development at Iowa State, said two issues make statistics unreliable, the first of which is students’ reluctance to report crimes.

“We need to make sure it’s comfortable for students to come forward, particularly on campus,” Cychosz said.

Another issue involves some universities’ legislation policies that make some people accountable for reporting crimes.

“This can make it confusing, and I worry about crimes being reported more than once,” Cychosz said. “Some are reported both to us and the Student Counseling Service, but because of confidentiality reasons it is hard to confirm what is reported more than once.”

To find more accurate information, the NCJA has created a project called “Assisting Victims of Campus Crimes,” which searches for colleges and universities interested in taking part in identifying promising policies and practices, as well as gaps in serving campus crime victims.

With support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime, NCJA’s project will teach students about crimes, including how to report them and their rights as victims.

After the information is collected from participating colleges and universities, a panel of experts will review the information.

The information will then help identify approaches to use on a focus group, which will then be used to locate gaps in the services provided by the project.

Cychosz said the program is of significance to ISU.

“Iowa State would certainly be interested in the program, but we would need to look into it more,” he said.

Right now, ISU has a major initiative to reach victims of sexual assault, who Cychosz said are most wary of reporting incidents.

Currently, the university is supported by a grant that pulls together a team to help sexual assault victims.

Cychosz said other crimes also are underreported, but sexual assault probably is the most difficult. He added that maintaining the accessibility of services is highly important.

The objective of the NCJA project is to keep parents, students and universities informed of campus crimes and to set up practices to help serve victims of campus crimes.

According to the NCJA, service providers and public safety administrators recognize that more effort should be focused on ensuring student safety and reassuring parents and students that college campuses are safe.

More information about the NCJA project is available by contacting

http://www.sso.org/ncja/campcall.htm.