Background
The Emerson College Police Department (ECPD) is required to report annual statistics concerning the occurrence of certain criminal offenses outlined below. These statistics are gathered from reports made to the ECPD, local police, or any official of the institution who has “significant responsibility for student and campus activities.”
Definition
According to federal law, specifically, The Student Right to know and Campus Security Act of 1990 (renamed the CLERY Act in 1998), the definition of Campus Security Authority (CSA) is as follows:
“An official of an institution who has significant responsibility for student and campus activities, including, but not limited to, student housing, student discipline, and campus judicial proceedings.”
Similarly, the Director of Athletics, team coaches, and faculty advisors to student groups, also have significant responsibility for student and campus activities.
In general, a single faculty member whose sole responsibility is teaching academic material is unlikely to have significant responsibility for student and campus activities, except when serving as an advisor to a student group.
A physician in a campus health center or a counselor in a counseling center whose only responsibility is to provide care to students are unlikely to have significant responsibility for student and campus activities.
Clerical staff, kitchen staff, and facilities and maintenance staff are also unlikely to have significant responsibility for student and campus activities.
All Campus Security Authorities are expected to contact ECPD's emergency line 617-824-8888 on campus if there is immediate danger or call 911 if the danger is off-campus.
At any time, if you have a question regarding reporting requirements, please contact ECPD dispatch 617-824-8555 and speak to the on-duty supervisor. If the on-duty supervisor cannot answer your question, they will contact Sergeant Slocumb for clarification or guidance.
Please view the following video to learn more about CSAs:
This video may not be accessible to users. If you need assistance accessing this video's contents, please reach out to mackenzie_slocumb [at] emerson.edu (mackenzie_slocumb[at]emerson[dot]edu).
Reportable Offenses required by the CLERY Act
ECPD has to report the following criminal offenses:
- Murder/Non-Negligent Manslaughter: The willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another.
- Negligent Manslaughter: The killing of another person through gross negligence.
- Rape: The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. The definition of “rape” includes forced anal intercourse (sodomy), forced oral sex, and forced penetration of genital or anal openings by any foreign object, including a finger. The definition of rape further includes intercourse with a person who is mentally incapacitated, unconscious, asleep, or physically incapable of consenting due to the consumption of alcohol or other drugs.
- Fondling: The touching of the breasts, buttocks or genitalia of another person, without the consent of the victim, including instances where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental incapacity.
- Incest: Non Forcible sexual intercourse between persons who are related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law.
- Statutory Rape: Non Forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is under the statutory age of consent. In Massachusetts the statutory age of consent is 16 years of age.
- Domestic Violence: Includes felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by: a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the survivor; a person with whom the survivor shares a child in common; a person who is or was residing in the same household as the survivor as a spouse or intimate partner; or any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s act under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction in which the crime of violence occurred.
- Dating Violence: Refers to violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship or a romantic or intimate nature with the survivor.
- Stalking: Engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others, or suffer substantial emotional distress.
- Robbery: The taking or attempting to take anything from value of the care, custody or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
- Aggravated Assault: An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. (It is not necessary that injury result from an aggravated assault when a gun, knife or other weapon is used which could or probably would result in a serious potential injury if the crime were successfully completed.)
- Burglary: The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft. For reporting purposes this definition includes: unlawful entry with intent to commit a larceny or a felony; breaking and entering with intent to commit a larceny; housebreaking; safecracking; and all attempts to commit any of the aforementioned.
- Motor Vehicle Theft: The theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle (this includes joy riding).
- Arson: The willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, or personal property of another kind.
Arrests/Disciplinary Referrals
- Weapon Law Violations: The violation of laws or ordinances dealing with weapon offenses, regulatory in nature, such as: manufacture, sale, or possession of deadly weapons; carrying deadly weapons, concealed or openly; furnishing deadly weapons to minors; aliens possessing deadly weapons; all attempts to commit any of the aforementioned.
- Drug Abuse Violations: Violations of state and local laws relating to the unlawful possession, sale, use, growing, manufacturing, and making of narcotic drugs. The relevant substances include: opium or cocaine and their derivatives (morphine, heroin, codeine); marijuana; synthetic narcotics (Demerol, methadones); and dangerous non-narcotic drugs (barbiturates, Benzedrine).
- Liquor Law Violations: The violation of laws or ordinance prohibiting: the manufacture, sale, transporting, furnishing, possessing of intoxicating liquor; maintaining unlawful drinking places; bootlegging; operating a still; furnishing liquor to minor or intemperate person; using a vehicle for illegal transportation of liquor; drinking on a train or public conveyance; all attempts to commit any of the aforementioned. (Drunkenness and driving under the influence are not included in this definition.)
Hate Crimes
Emerson College is also required to report statistics for hate (bias) related crimes by the type of bias as defined below for the CLERY Act reportable crimes and larceny, vandalism, intimidation, and simple assault (see definitions below). A hate or bias related crime is not a separate, distinct crime, but is the commission of a criminal offense that was motivated by the offender's bias. If a hate crime occurs where there is an incident involving intimidation, vandalism, larceny, simple assault or other bodily injury, the law requires that the statistic be reported as a hate crime even though there is no requirement to report the crime classification in any other area of the compliance document.
- Larceny: The unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession or constructive possession of another.
- Vandalism: To willfully or maliciously destroy, injure, disfigure, or deface any public or private property, real or personal, without the consent of the owner or person having custody or control by cutting, tearing, breaking, marking, painting, drawing, covering with filth, or any other such means as may be specified by local law.
- Intimidation: To unlawfully place another person in reasonable fear of bodily harm through the use of threatening words and/or other conduct, but without displaying a weapon or subjecting the victim to actual physical attack.
- Simple Assault: An unlawful physical attack by one person upon another where neither the offender displays a weapon, nor the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury involving apparent broken bones, loss of teeth, possible internal injury, severe laceration or loss of consciousness.
Hate crime biases are as follows:
- Race
- Religion
- Ethnicity
- National Origin
- Gender
- Sexual Orientation
- Disability
- Gender Identity
ECPD is required to report offenses that occur:
- On campus
- In residential housing facilities
- In non-campus buildings or property, and
- On public property immediately to and adjacent to the College
How to Report a Crime
The CSA will need to complete the Crime Statistic Report form and return it without delay to the ECPD. CSAs may call ECPD at 617-824-8555 and have an officer respond to retrieve the Crime Statistics Report Form, which will become part of ECPD’s incident report.
View the Crime Statistics Report Form
Remember: If the victim/survivor does not wish to speak to Law Enforcement then CSAs should call and submit the completed form after the victim/survivor has left the area.
- If the CSA does not know whether or not the crime was reported to the ECPD, please complete the attached form and ECPD will investigate the crime statistic.
- The CSA should provide ECPD with the date and the location of the incident. If you do not know the date it occurred, provide a timeframe when it was reported to you.
- If the exact location is unknown, the CSA will provide as much information as he/she has, i.e. occurred in a residence hall, an academic building, on campus or whatever you know that will help ECPD properly classify the crime.
- In addition, ECPD would like a brief description of the incident so that it can appropriately classify the criminal offense.
CSAs except Police are not required to investigate crimes.
Special Consideration
If any crime that may cause an ongoing threat to the Emerson College community is reported to anyone who is defined as a Campus Security Authority, that individual shall without delay report that incident to the ECPD. Emerson College has a responsibility to notify the campus community about any crimes which pose a serious or ongoing threat to the community.
If CSA needs immediate assistance, they should call ECPD dispatch at 617-824-8555.