On Monday, Sept. 30, Michael Hill, the director of public safety at Swarthmore College, issued an email to all students announcing the release of the “2024 Swarthmore College Annual Fire Safety and Security Report.”
According to Hill, the report includes “information regarding crime prevention, fire safety, crime reporting policies, and other essential matters related to security on campus,” as well as statistics from the past three calendar years concerning crimes reported to Public Safety or the Swarthmore Borough Police Department. These reported crimes occurred “either on campus, in non-campus buildings or property owned or controlled by the College, or on public property within or reasonably contiguous to and accessible from campus.”
In his introductory message to the 126-page report, Hill states that the information is provided “in compliance with Pennsylvania’s 1988 College and University Security Information Act, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, the Campus Fire Safety Right to Know Act, and the 2013 Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.” The Clery Act, as Hill explains in the email, is “the federal law that requires colleges and universities across the U.S. to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses.”
In an incident on Sept. 7 at Olde Club, a student was groped. The case remains “under investigation,” according to an email response from Hill to The Phoenix. Public Safety’s new report serves as a timely reminder for community members to stay informed about resources and knowledge that can help protect both themselves and those around them.
Swarthmore College President Val Smith also contributed a message to the report, emphasizing that “reading this report will help all of us make Swarthmore an even safer living and learning environment.”
The Phoenix compiled some highlights and key statistics, along with a preliminary analysis comparing Swarthmore’s crime rate to those from several nearby educational institutions.
Reporting Crimes
The first part of the report outlines comprehensive security policies and procedures for various situations, an array of safeguarding and well-being resources, and regulations related to alcohol and drug use on campus.
Notably, several methods of reporting crimes and concerns are mentioned on pages eight and nine.
The importance of reporting crimes to Public Safety is underscored: “If crimes are never reported, little can be done to prevent other members of the community from becoming victims. We encourage Swarthmore College community members to report crimes accurately, promptly, and to participate in and support crime-prevention efforts.”
For those with more privacy concerns, the report specifies a few ways to file anonymous reports as well, which include reporting to an external agency named “Compliance Line Inc.,” submitting anonymously through SwatSafe, and omitting one’s name and contact information when filling online reports.
2023 Crime Statistics
1. Criminal Offenses
Pages 45 to 54 highlight the newly released crime statistics for 2023, alongside data from 2021 and 2022 for comparison. The Phoenix compiled these trends in Figure 1 at the bottom of this article, with non-forcible burglary and forcible burglary displayed compositely as “burglary.” Based on the statistics offered, there have been no reported incidents of murder, manslaughter, statutory rape, incest, or robbery at Swarthmore College over the past three years. That said, all other reports of criminal offenses have seen increases from 2022 to 2023. The only exception is a steady decrease in non-forcible burglary, which happened respectively five, four, and only two times in 2021, 2022, and 2023. This decline, however, comes amidst a surge in forcible burglary, rising from one case in 2022 to ten cases in 2023, resulting in an overall increase of seven burglary cases from 2022 to 2023, with a higher percentage of force involved.
As shown in Figure 1, the overall trend in criminal offenses goes up over the three years, with 2023 accounting for the largest number of reported crimes. Among all, four cases of arson and two cases of domestic violence were reported in 2023, with no precedent records in the previous two years.
2. Disciplinary Referrals, Arrests, Larceny, and Hate Crimes
Statistics on illegal weapons possession, drug law violations, and liquor law violations in Swarthmore over the past three years are categorized into disciplinary referrals and arrests. The Phoenix compiled these trends into Figure 2 at the bottom of this document. There were no arrests for illegal weapons possession from 2021 through 2023. In 2023, there was one arrest for drug law violations, while arrests for liquor law violations rose slightly from eight in 2021 to ten in 2023.
As for disciplinary referrals, there were thirteen drug law violations reported in 2023, with twelve occurring in residence halls; referrals for liquor law violations decreased from 69 to 40 from 2022 to 2023. Although the 40 cases reported in 2023 still significantly surpass the 29 cases from 2021.
Ten cases of hate crimes occurred at Swarthmore in 2023, an alarming contrast to the absence of such incidents in both 2021 and 2022. Among these were four incidents of “Vandalism based upon Ethnicity” that occurred on campus, two “Simple Assaults based upon Shared National Origin” that occurred on campus, one case of “Vandalism based upon religion” occurred on campus and inside a residence hall, one “Intimidation based upon Shared National Origin” occurred on campus and inside a residence hall, and one “Vandalism based upon Shared National Origin” occurred on campus and inside a residence hall.
Although not counted as one of Clery Act Crimes according to the protection law, statistics on larceny is also included in the report “to promote transparency of crime statistics at Swarthmore College.” (See Figure 2)
3. Crime Rates
To effectively interpret Swarthmore’s crime statistics, the number of incidents must be converted into crime rate based on the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) students and employees of the institution. This allows for meaningful comparisons of crime rates across different institutions. In the report, a concise guidance to calculate the crime rate is presented to its readers:
“Individual-category crime rates may be calculated by comparing the individual category to the combined full-time-equivalent undergraduate student population and the full-time-equivalent employees; dividing this population figure into 100,000 and multiplying the resultant figure by individual-category statistics will produce the crime rate per 100,000 per category.”
After a sharp rise in the combined student and employee totals in 2022, Swarthmore’s FTE count for 2023 sat at 2,586.
The Phoenix collected data from the 2024 annual fire, safety, and security reports from four nearby educational institutions — Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Widener University, and the University of Pennsylvania — along with their data of full-time-equivalent students and employees (FTEs) for 2023.
The raw data from these four institutions, along with the statistics for Swarthmore from the report, were subsequently converted into crime rates per 100,000 and compared in Figure 3.
It is important, though, to keep in mind that differences in school cultures, scales, crime reporting methods, geographical location, and statistical collection procedures can significantly influence the reliability of each school’s data outcome, thus casting doubt on the validity of the results below.
Based on the data found online and The Phoenix’s primary calculations, Swarthmore has a relatively low crime rate on aggravated assault among the five compared schools, the second highest rate of Liquor Law Violations Referrals, and the highest crime rate in all the other columns.
“Swarthmore College is an open campus,” Hill points out in his message in the report. “Crimes exist in our society at large, and while the College has a variety of crime prevention programs and services, we count on every member of our community to be aware of their surroundings.
“We strongly encourage everyone to promptly report all criminal activity and suspicious persons. We also recommend you avail yourself of the numerous existing programs and services intended to enhance your safety and awareness, here and abroad.”
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