The story isn’t new: a college campus gets a rash of reported crimes at the beginning of a new year. Both the university and local police call press conferences to address the issue. Word of mouth spreads: “Crime wave on campus.”
More people begin to carry pepper spray walking home at night. Worried students talk to their parents. The university, in response, sends out year-by-year statistics evidently showing an overall decrease in crime to mollify student and parent alike.
Some reported crimes turn out to be false. Others continue to be under investigation. Relieved by the comfort that the statistics provide, they once again feel secure for their children. Parents continue to pay tuition, and the university has avoided an unflattering media message.
USC’s storyline basically follows this pattern: On Parents Weekend, the university released a two-page handout concerning crime on campus to try to quell parents' troubled questions before they’re asked.
The proffered statistics tell a simple story: from 2012 to 2014, the total reported crime has gone down each year. Combining the USC campus and USC area crime, the handout reports 518 offenses in 2012, 415 in 2013 and 281 in 2014.
The page itself is mostly focused around the prominent bar graphs at the top of the page. It is an effective pamphlet. A visiting parent, fretting over the idea that they might have made a mistake sending their child to USC, is reassured by the graphs, clearly demarcating the decline in crime.
While there are no discrepancies between the statistics offered by the pamphlet and the USC’s 2014 Annual Security Report, there are numerous misleading factors concerning how the information is presented.
First off, 2014 isn’t over yet. The huge jump from 415 crimes in 2013 to 281 this year is only representative of every month before October, which the university points out in a footnote. But for the last two years, October was the month with the most reported crime.
While there is no guarantee that the same October crime “bump” will repeat itself this year, we feel that the statistics presented in the handout paints a incomplete picture. Printing it at a time when all the data isn't yet available is inherently misleading, and serves to bolster the reputation of the university when the information simply isn't in yet.
Also, instead of zeroing in on the period when crime seemed rampant this year (the period between August and September), the pamphlet focuses on the entire year’s worth of crime, further muddying the picture.
We feel that if the university feels the need to release a report about on-campus crime, one with a more complete statistical message that is released when all the facts are on the table, would paint a picture of crime at USC closer to the truth.