The number of on-campus rapes reported to police increased by 21 percent from 2015 to 2016 at Cornell and there were eight on-campus hate crimes reported to police last year, according to the Cornell Police Department’s annual security report.
Domestic violence, stalking and dating violence reports all more than doubled from 2015 to 2016 — from 3 to 11, 7 to 16, and 1 to 5, respectively — according to the report, which was released last week in compliance with the Jeanne Clery Act.
Burglaries slightly decreased, from 20 to 17, and driving while intoxicated arrests decreased from 17 to 3 from 2015 to 2016. Rapes reported on campus jumped from 14 to 17, according to the new report. It’s not clear, from this data, if more rapes occurred or if more victims were reporting the attacks to police.
Fourteen of the 17 rapes occurred in residential facilities, according to the data, while the other three occurred on-campus but not in Cornell residential facilities.
“We’ve had a very strong push over the last couple of years to increase reporting and make sure victims get the resources that they need,” Deputy Chief David Honan told The Sun. “So, I’m hopeful that these numbers are showing that victims are connecting with the services they need.”
Honan said CUPD compiles the data and releases it annually to comply with the national act requiring universities to report crime numbers, but members of the department review statistics much more frequently — weekly, in most cases — to spot trends regarding crimes and services provided to Cornell.
The eight on-campus hate crimes reported in 2016 were: two intimidations based on race, one assault based on race, two acts of vandalism based on sexual orientation, one assault based on sexual orientation, one on-campus assault based on disability, and one act of vandalism based on gender.
Total liquor law violation referrals decreased drastically for the second year in a row, from 482 to 207, although liquor law violation arrests increased from five to 20 from 2015 to 2016. Drug law violations resulted in arrest 19 times in 2016 as opposed to 27 in 2015.
The full data can be viewed at the Cornell University Police website.