Crime on campus
Assault offenses 2013 – 701 2014 – 624 2015 – 657 2016 – 794 Drug offenses 2013 – 821 2014 – 912 2015 – 859 2016 – 1,011 Theft offenses 2013 – 2,255 2014 – 2,032 2015 – 1,753 2016 – 1,677
Crime on Tennessee’s college campuses and universities increased slightly in 2016 from 2015, according to an annual report released this week by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
With 6,158 offenses reported in 2016, the crime rate edged above the 6,111 offenses reported in 2015, but the number still is appreciably lower than what was being reported only a few years ago. From 2009-2012, more than 7,000 crimes were reported on Tennessee college campuses each year.
This year’s increase can be attributed to a number of things, but the largest contributors were assault and drug offenses, which grew by 20.9 percent and 17.7 percent respectively. In 2016, there were 794 assault offenses compared to 657 the year before and 1,011 drug offenses compared to 859 in 2015.
Although reported larceny and theft offenses declined by almost 100 in 2016, that category still made up 27.2 percent of all reported crime.
TBI spokesman Josh Devine declined to comment on the potential reasons for those changes, saying the agency only presents the data, not analysis. However, he did concede the report may not be the entire picture because the data includes only offenses that were fully reported.
“Our hope is that this is the most accurate picture of crime on college campuses that might be available,” Devine said. “But again, we’re only working with incidents that have been fully reported to law enforcement agencies responsible for safety on college and university campuses and that data that subsequently gets filtered up the chain to TBI.”
Chuck Cantrell, associate vice chancellor of marketing and communication at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said local university officials are happy with the numbers they’ve seen this year and are continuing to make it easier for students to report crimes.
“We can’t deal with it if we don’t know about it,” he said. “We have been working very hard to create an atmosphere where students feel comfortable reporting.”
He said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by the number of assault offenses and that it reflects a nationwide trend.
“We’re finding that young people tend to conflict resolution through fighting sometimes. I don’t know if that’s a factor of the way they communicate in general through social media and stuff,” he said.
“There’s not as much emphasis sometimes on personal interactions, so when they are forced into living together sometimes those emotions sort of explode into physical violence.”
As for drug offenses, he said UTC tries to work extensively with students who are caught using illicit substances.
“We try to give students multiple chances. We take them to student conduct and things before it goes to a police issue and that’s the way most campuses handle it, as well,” he said. “For us, we do look at drug violations somewhat as an educational opportunity as much as a criminal offense.”
TBI generates the report based on information submitted by colleges, universities and law enforcement agencies through an internal reporting system and the agency has put measures in place to ensure that data is accurate.
“The TBI does do auditing where we actually will go look at the reports that were submitted to these institutions to ensure that things are being reported appropriately to the TIBRS system, so that’s sort of our internal quality control check to make sure the data is as accurate as we can hopefully make it,” Devine said.
Other notable points included in the report were a marginal increase in fraud, due in large part to an uptick in impersonation offenses from 13 in 2015 to 36 in 2016. Reported forcible rape offenses also dropped from 62 to 45.
While TBI doesn’t publicly offer analysis of the report, officials hope the data can be used by various groups to improve safety on campuses across the state.
“This report will hopefully assist law enforcement, institution administrations, and government officials in planning their efforts in the fight against crime and continue to create an awareness that crime exists as a threat in our communities,” TBI Director Mark Gwyn wrote in a news release.
Contact staff writer Emmett Gienapp at egienapp@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731. Follow him on Twitter @emmettgienapp.