I was stunned that that type of information was given by a university that knows better. In 1998 alone, UC Davis' Campus Violence Prevention Program counseled 186 women, mostly students, who said they were victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking and hate crimes, records show. And every year, in a poll of her self-defense students, Grant found about 50 percent said they had been sexually assaulted in college. Jennifer Beeman, program manager of the campus violence prevention program at UC Davis, agreed that the situation on campus has been starkly different from the official crime statistics. Beeman acknowledged that Handy's public recitation of misleading statistics painted an inaccurate picture, even though she and other administrators maintained the reports he based them on met the requirements of the law.
Sexual assaults are the most difficult crimes to capture statistically, experts agree.
The American Medical Association reports that more than one in four college-age women have been the victim of rape or attempted rape. Other experts say that as many as 90 percent of sexual assaults go unreported by victims. Adding to the reporting gap, universities historically are reluctant to publish crime data. In 1990, the Campus Security Act, later renamed the Clery Act, was enacted, requiring all postsecondary institutions to put together exhaustive crime reports or risk losing federal aid. Recognizing that few students actually report crimes to the police, the Clery Act mandated that colleges compile statistics from several campus authorities, according to Maureen McLaughlin, deputy assistant secretary for policy, planning and innovation for the U.S. Department of Education.