CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses violence, domestic violence, sexual violence, and drug & liquor law enforcement.
Oct. 4 — Every year, the college is required to publish statistics on all crime reported on Hampshire College’s campus for the previous calendar year.
This requirement comes from the Clery Act. Passed in 1990, the Clery Act is named for Jeanne Clery, a college student who was murdered on a campus with a history of violent crime.
According to the report, the following on-campus crimes were reported from January 1st, 2023 to December 31st, 2023:
6 instances of rape, 3 instances of fondling, 1 instance of dating violence, 8 instances of liquor law violations, 11 instances of drug law violations.
Of note, no liquor law or drug law violations resulted in arrests, and were only referred to disciplinary action through the school.
When reached for comment on this particular quirk of the statistics, Campus Safety and Wellbeing said “[…] none of the violations related to liquor law and drug law were severe enough to necessitate arrest. The College manages follow-up conversations and accountability measures through the community standards process rather than carceral law enforcement methods that criminalize a student for certain violations.”
The Clery Act requires reporting on a variety of other crime categories, but none were reported this year, including 0 reports of stalking despite it being a hot-button issue during the fall 2023 semester.
Additionally, the Clery Act requires the school disclose if any reported crimes had an element of bias towards the victim’s identity. 2 cases of race-based harassment were reported in 2023.
