Summary: The Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, which was passed in 1990 in response to a steady rise in violent crime reported on college campuses, encourages the development of security policies and procedures at all colleges and universities participating in federal student aid programs--including policies and procedures to address sexual assaults and to introduce uniformity in reporting campus crime statistics to students, parents, and employees. GAO found that although colleges are having difficulty complying with the act, the Department of Education only recently began to systematically monitor compliance. Moreover, citing resource limitations, the Department delayed preparing a report on campus crime statistics that was required by law to be issued in September 1995; the Department issued the report in February 1997. At the campus level, colleges are finding it difficult to consistently interpret and apply some of the law's reporting requirements. Areas of difficulty include how to include incidents reported to campus officials other than law enforcement officers, interpreting federal requirements for reporting sexual offenses, and reporting data on hate crimes. Proposed federal legislation would have augmented available information on campus crime by requiring that campus police records be open to the campus community. Similar laws are on the books in eight states. Three laws require that colleges maintain daily logs.
