SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

There’s a lot to learn from UVA - Jackie’s story with Phi Kappa Psi , missing student Hannah Graham , the brutal murder of Yeardley Love - a culture on campus in which violence and sexual assaults are taken with a soft-handed approach. In each case at UVA, and across campuses nationwide, there is political as well as financial pressure for the campus police and administration to downplay or cover-up crimes committed on or by students either on campus or off. Jackie’s story recently recounted in a Rolling Stone article uncovered a broken system that fails victims and aids attackers. Students are calling for Dean Eramo to be fired for her role in keeping sexual assaults within campus authority rather than reporting them directly to the local police department. Since the story was published, many more UVA students and alumni have come forward with similar stories. It’s been brought to light that even when assaults are kept within campus authority, punishments are weak, or non-e

It t ook the tragic event of   Jeanne Clery   rape and murder to initiate the creation of the  Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act  (20 USC § 1092(f)).   Now any college or university receiving federal funds is required to disclose information about crimes on or near their campuses.  So if you attend a University that receives federal aid, you should have access to crime information.  But what about everyone else?  Why shouldn't cities and counties have the same requirements to inform their citizens? Part of the inspiration of this post was a recent story in the   Houston Chronical   about a woman who successfully sued her   apartment complex   because her apartment company failed to notify her about a recent break-in at the apartment next to her.  Shortly after renewing her lease, she was attacked in her apartment and brutally raped for 10 hours in February of 2009.    In this particular case, the apartment complex was at fault part