Briana Alberghini ‘21
Staff Writer
Merrimack College released its annual Clery report, the Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics and Fire Safety, on October 1.The Clery Act requires Merrimack to disclose certain crime statistics, safety related policies and procedures, fire safety protocols, and other campus information and statistics.
Merrimack is not the only college that dislouces this type of information. Every college in the country must disclose campus security policies and crime statistics if they participate in federal financial aid programs.
By law, this report must be published by October 1 of each year. Campus crime, arrest and referral statistics include those reported to MCPD, designated campus officials, and local law enforcement agencies.
The Clery Report contains crime statistics for the 2016, 2017, and 2018 school years. The 2018 statistics contained no reports of serious crimes such as manslaughter, hate crimes, arson, vehicle theft, or robbery. Although there were reports of stalking, dating violence, and rape which have went up a small amount within the past three years.
Liquor law referrals are one of the most items cited in the Clery report. However, the number of referrals is decreasing each year despite the growing student population. In 2016 there was 874 cases and in 2018 there was 528 cases. Drinking is a common occurrence on most college campuses, so it no surprise every year it continues to be an area of police activity.
The drug law referral category has stayed steady for the last two years with only having one incident. Numbers have not always been this low. In fact, in 2015 there was over 160 referrals. The drug law referral taking a drastic drop like this could be due to the fact that until 2015 marijuanna was not legal in the state of Massachusetts. Since it is now legal, it is less of a concern.
Merrimack College overall has very low crime numbers, and with over 4,000 undergraduate students, this is something that the campus should be proud of.
