The Clery Act

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) is a federal mandate requiring all institutions of higher education (IHEs) that participate in the federal student financial aid program to disclose information about crime on their campuses and in the surrounding communities. The Clery Act affects virtually all public and private IHEs and is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Campuses that fail to comply with the act can be penalized with large fines and may be suspended from participating in the federal financial aid program.

The Clery Act, formerly known as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, was signed in 1990 and is named after 19-year-old Jeanne Clery who was raped and murdered in her Lehigh University residence hall in 1986. The Clery Act was amended in 2008, and the Security On Campus Web site includes a summary of those amendments.

Compliance with the Clery Act

The U.S. Department of Education created The Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting to present step-by-step procedures, examples, and references for higher education institutions to follow in meeting the campus safety and security requirements of the amended Higher Education Act of 1965.

Clery Act Requirements

The requirements fall into three categories based on the configuration of an institution. The following is a brief overview of the requirements. For more details, see chapter 1 of The Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting.

  1. Every institution must:
    • Collect, classify, and count crime reports and crime statistics.
    • Issue campus alerts, including issuing a timely warning for any Clery Act crime that represents an ongoing threat to the safety of students or employees; and issuing an emergency notification upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees occurring on the campus.
    • Publish an annual security report containing safety- and security-related policy statements and crime statistics and distribute it to all current students and employees. Schools also must inform prospective students and employees about the availability of the report.
    • Submit crime statistics to ED each fall via Web-based data collection. The comprehensive user’s guide for the survey is located online at https://surveys.ope.ed.gov/security.
  2. If the institution maintains a campus police or security department, the institution must keep a daily crime log of alleged criminal incidents that is open to public inspection.
  3. If the institution has any on-campus student housing facilities, it must:
    • Disclose missing student notification procedures that pertain to students residing in those facilities.
    • Disclose fire safety information related to those facilities, which includes keeping a fire log that is open to public inspection; publishing an annual safety report containing policy statements as well as fire statistics associated with each on-campus student housing facility; informing prospective students and employees about the availability of the annual safety report; and submitting fire statistics to ED each fall in the Web-based data collection.

Accessing Clery Act Crime and Fire Data

ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) developed the Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool to provide rapid customized reports for public inquiries relating to campus crime data. The data are drawn from the OPE Campus Security Statistics Web site database to which crime statistics are submitted annually as required by the Clery Act. Access the tool at the Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Web site or by calling 1-800-435-5985.

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