Los Angeles County and Orange County universities are among six California schools that failed to comply with federal law by incorrectly reporting crimes committed on campus, according to a state audit.
According to the state's recently released 2023 school year report, Mount Saint Mary's University, Los Angeles and Orange Coast College were found to have inaccurate or incomplete crime statistics. The other schools were University of San Diego, Chico State, Imperial Valley College and UC Santa Cruz.
“Due to these errors and omissions, current and prospective students, staff and other stakeholders may have an incorrect understanding of campus security,” the report states.
Mount Saint Mary's and Orange Coast also failed to comply with federal and state laws because they lacked adequate reporting procedures, such as providing desk manuals that staff could follow when preparing crime reports or failing to provide sufficient training on the requirements of federal law.
Officials at both schools did not respond to The Times' request for comment.
Specifically, Mount Saint Mary's failed to track its reportable criminal incidents in a central location, leading to the university overreporting 16 of 57 crimes — for an overall error rate of 30% — in its 2022 crime statistics, the state audit found.
Mount Saint Mary's and Orange Coast had incomplete daily crime records. The universities were missing between 17 and 25 crimes from their daily crime records out of a total of about 60 crimes the state reviewed for each of the six institutions.
All of the universities reviewed failed to disclose to students, faculty and administrators all campus security policies, emergency response and evacuation procedures and programs required by federal law.
The audit also found that Orange Coast misreported crimes.
Misreporting occurs when a school correctly identifies a crime but fails to report it under the correct category as required by federal law or fails to properly document the location of the crime, according to the state auditor's report.
The auditor's review of 60 crimes in Orange Coast found the school reported two crimes in the wrong federal category, including one hate bullying incident that was reported as domestic violence.
“In that incident, a student physically intimidated another student and used derogatory language directed at the victim’s sexuality while the two were living together in a residence hall,” the report said.
Orange Coast reported the incident to the U.S. Department of Education as domestic violence. However, the state auditor's review of the case report suggests the school should have reported the incident as a hate crime and bullying based on sexual orientation.
Every three years, the California State Auditor conducts a review of several universities to see if they comply with the Clery Act, officially known as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policies and Crime Statistics Act.
The Clery Act, enacted in 1990, is a consumer protection law that requires colleges and universities to report on crimes committed on their campuses as well as their security policies. These educational institutions must publish an annual security report containing statistics related to specific crimes, such as homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults.
Colleges that receive federal financial assistance to record and report data on campus crimes are required to comply with the Clery Act and are subject to review by the state auditor.
How the state auditor determines which colleges to review depends on several factors, including the number of crimes each institution reported to the U.S. Department of Education, the institution's geographic location, the type of institution, and whether the state auditor has previously audited the institution.
Over the past 21 years, the state auditor has consistently found noncompliance with Clery Act requirements at 41 institutions.
The state auditor's findings could lead the Department of Education to issue fines of up to approximately $70,000 for each violation.
In 2020, UC Berkeley was fined $2.35 million for violations of the Clery Act and for failing to have sufficient administrative capacity to oversee its reporting under the Clery Act.
All six institutions agreed with the state auditor’s findings and indicated they will implement the recommendations provided, which include establishing procedures for compiling Clery Act statistics and developing procedures that law enforcement or campus security can follow to fully record the daily record of crimes, according to the report.
