Content warning: This article includes discussions of hate crimes and sexual assault.
Comparing data collected from Clery Act reporting reveals major crime incidents and non-DUI related citations decreased from 2023 to 2024, with thefts excluding car theft shrinking from 124 total incidents in 2023 to 44 incidents in 2024.
The Clery Act became law in 1990 and is also known as The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crimes Statistics Act. It requires colleges and universities to report all crime incidents on campus, off campus near the college or university and on public property that surrounds a campus.
The Clery Act does not require all public property crimes to be disclosed, according to the annual security report.
With thefts excluding cars, Point Park’s numbers are now lower compared to the University of Pittsburgh’s. In 2023, Pitt had 101 incidents — and 131 incidents in 2024.
Duquesne University has not published its 2024 data, but the university’s Clery Act Report for 2023 showed zero theft incidents.
Neither Chatham University nor Carlow University have a section for thefts which exclude car thefts.
However, each Pittsburgh university listed has statistics for drug and alcohol violations, which differ substantially between the schools.
Point Park, for example, had 13 total arrests for drug law violations in 2023 and 27 in 2024. Every arrest in 2024 was on public property near campus; not in a residential dorm hall or on campus.
For liquor law violations, Point Park had seven arrests in 2023 and four in 2024 — again, none were on campus property. In contrast, Duquesne had eight recorded incidents in 2023, which includes four reported in a residential dorm hall. Pitt had 43 incidents in 2023 and 33 in 2023, while Carlow had zero reported incidents in 2023.
Each university differs in response to liquor law violations. For instance, Point Park, Duquesne and Chatham list arrests for liquor law violations. They also have a section separate from the arrests, listing certain liquor law violations under a “referred for disciplinary action” category.
As for referrals, each university lists significantly higher referral numbers than arrests for liquor law violations.
For instance, Point Park lists 48 liquor violation referrals in 2023, 22 of which were reported in a residential dorm hall and 46 in 2024, with 23 occurring in a dorm hall.
At Duquesne, the numbers are much higher. 222 violations were reported in 2023, with 108 occurring in a residential hall and 113 listed on campus. Carlow is on the lower side, with only two referrals related to liquor law violations listed for 2023, with one being in a residential dorm hall and another being on campus.
Despite its size in comparison to Duquesne and Point Park, Pitt has 43 violations listed in 2023 and 33 in 2024. However, Pitt’s data does not specify whether an incident occurred on campus, off campus or in a residential hall.
As for sex crimes such as rape, three were reported at Point Park in 2023, with one in a residential dorm hall and two listed on public property. Forcible fondling is listed four times in 2023 and twice in 2024 — only once was the crime reported in a dorm hall for both 2023 and 2024.
In comparison, Duquesne reported nine rapes in 2023, three of which were in a dorm hall, and four forcible fondling cases, with one in a dorm hall. Carlow reported none in 2023, while Pitt reported one in 2023 and four in 2024.
Chatham, however, had three rape cases in 2023 – one of which being in a dorm hall – and five forcible fondling cases, with two occurring in a dorm hall.
One of the only pieces of data where Point Park is like other small universities is reported hate crimes. The Clery Act requires hate crimes to be reported individually along with crimes that were committed due to a victim’s “race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, or disability,” according to Point Park’s annual safety report.
Every college or university’s safety report describes hate crime reporting and how it is listed in the data. Point Park has not had any reported hate crimes since at least 2022. The same is true for Chatham, Carlow and Duquesne, which had one reported hate crime in 2021.
Pitt, on the other hand, directly lists motivations for hate crimes which occurred on campus. In 2023, one case of vandalism on campus was reportedly due to religious bias. Two cases of on-campus vandalism were due to sexual orientation bias with one occurring in a dorm hall. One case of ethnic intimidation happened on public property and one ethnic intimidation case occurred off campus. In 2024, Pitt reported one case of vandalism on campus based on national origin bias and two cases of ethnic intimidation on campus.
Every university is required to release Clery Act data to the public by Oct. 1. Duquesne, Carlow and Chatham are yet to post data for 2024. Data for 2025 will be posted in 2026.
