WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Education has found that about340 colleges have violated the federal Campus Security Act since the lawwas enacted in 1991, according to the national watchdog organization Securityon Campus.
Few schools have been punished, however, for failing to comply withthe law, renamed the Jeanne Clery Act in 1998, requiring schools to publishannual crime statistics and make their police or security logs open tothe public. According to Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus,it is difficult to get the DOE to investigate colleges that violate thelaw, and it is even harder to get department officials to sanction thoseschools that work their way around the law.
“You basically have to prove [the violating school’s] guilt before [theDOE] will even look at the school,” Carter said.
Dan Madzelan, an official from the DOE, said the department would ratherhelp schools to comply with the law than sanction them.
“Our first step has always been to work with the schools to get themin compliance,” Madzelan said. “If we can’t get anywhere with the school,we then take the approach of enforcement, which could mean fines, limitedparticipation in federal student aid programs or suspension from the programs.”
But Carter said he believes the punishment, if ever imposed, is light.
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The list of schools is available online at http://campussafety.org/publicpolicy/cleryact/violations.html