TBI: violent crime up 20 percent, other crimes slightly up on state campuses

Crime on school campuses across Tennessee slightly increased in 2011, according to a report released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Wednesday. Violent crime, however, rose 20 percent for the second year in a row.

According to a release from the TBI, its “Crime on Campus 2011” report shows the increase follows after a decrease in reported offenses for 2010. Since 2004, the TBI reports have shown decrease each year except for another slight increase in 2009.

Last year, there were 7,493 reported offenses compared to 7,190 in 2010.

Some findings of the report include:

• Drug/narcotics and drug equipment violations have increased yearly since 2008 for a total increase of approximately 47 percent with 2010 to 2011 having the largest increase of nearly 26 percent. There were 772 of these type of offenses reported in 2011.
• There was a 47 percent increase in what the TBI labels “forcible” sex offenses reported from 2010 and an increase in the number of reported rapes with 20 overall.
• 37 percent of all 2011 offenses reported were categorized as larceny or theft, which is an increase from 2010. However, there was an overall decrease of 3 percent since 2009.
• Overall, assault offenses increased by 6.5 percent with aggravated assaults being down and simple assaults increasing.
• Theft of motor vehicle offenses have declined nearly 25 percent since 2009.
• DUI violations have decreased 25 percent since 2008.

The TBI publishes the annual Crime on Campus report pursuant to the 1989 "College and University Security Information Act" enacted by the Tennessee General Assembly. All colleges and universities are mandated to report crime statistics to TBI in an effort to assist law enforcement, institution administrations and government officials in planning their efforts to fight crime and applying crime prevention strategies.

A full copy of the 2011 report, including statistics from each individual institution, can be found at www.tbi.tn.gov. From there click on “Statistical Analysis Center” from the “Tennessee Crime Statistics” button on TBI’s homepage.