According to Carroll administrators, Carroll College reports crime on campus in accordance with Student Right to Know and Campus Security Act of 1990, otherwise known as the Clery Act, which requires the college to report incidences of crime on campus to students.

Those crimes reported to students include forcible rape, non-forcible rape, assault, underage drinking and illegal drug use. Carroll's crime statistics are also broken down to inform students as to the number of reported crimes that occurred in the residence halls.

Carroll's crime statistics are made available to students on Carroll's Web site and, according to the Clery Act, are required to be disseminated to students and prospective students.

Carroll College Director of Communications Nancy Lee said the crime statistics are available on Carroll's Web site, and in printed form, mailed to students through the campus mail. Crime statistics are published in Carroll's catalog to provide access for prospective students, Lee added.

According to Jim Hardwick, Carroll's vice president of student life, offenses reported to students are either those that are investigated by local law enforcement or are handled through the student judiciary process. Lee said reports to administrators and reports made to campus security personnel are also included in the report.

Even if, through the hearing process, a student is found not to be in violation of college policy, the policy violation is recorded as it was filed, Hardwick added.

The Clery Act requires colleges to include crimes in their statistical reports that are reported to campus security, which is provided part-time by Securitas, a private company. A log of security calls responded to by Securitas guards is required to be available to the public immediately upon request, and is considered to be public information.

Carroll administrators did not provide the security log upon request Tuesday afternoon. In an e-mail, Lee said, "We do not believe that the Securitas log is open to the public because Carroll does not maintain a police or security department."

Carroll's crime statistics reflect national numbers, but according to Sociologist Howard Robboy, a professor at The College of New Jersey, colleges and universities across the nation under-report and minimize campus crime in their statistics. For the past five years, Robboy has researched campus crime statistics and reporting practices and said Carroll's crime statistics and crime reporting procedures raise concerns.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, women of college age (18-22) are at a 20-25 percent higher risk of being raped than women of any other age group.

Based entirely on the Department of Justice research, Robboy said it would be extremely unlikely that any college, including Carroll, would go a year without a reported rape, or with only a few.

While Robboy commented on Carroll College, he said leading colleges across the U.S. are also suspiciously low in their incidents of rape.

In 2003, New York University reported only one rape n an unlikely figure for a college with a population of 38,000 students, Robboy said, and in 2002, the college recorded only one. The University of Nebraska reported only one rape in the past four years, and Penn State, with some 42,000, students reported nine last year.

"When I saw Carroll's statistics, right away I knew it was impossible," Robboy said. "When you have nothings for so long, it's obvious they're under-reporting."

At The College of New Jersey, where Robboy teaches, eight rapes were reported last year, from a student body of only 7,000 students.

"Crime can occur anywhere," Robboy said. "There's no safe college. The issue is a responsible college, one that takes action against perpetrators and supports victims."

Robboy theorized that the reason college administrators under-report crime is to protect the image of the college, and create a sense of safety for students and their parents.

"After all, why send your kids to a place that's irresponsible and endangers their well-being?" he added.

Reporter Laura Tode can be reached at 447-4081 or laura.tode@helenair.com.