UF cooks books on rape reports

UF cooks books on rape reports
Jenny Brown
November/December 1999

The University of Florida has insisted for years that very few rapes occur on campus. And for years, Campus NOW has responded to university's low figures by compiling their own confidential database of rape reports. In September, a complaint by Security on Campus, Inc. alleged that the university was violating the Campus Security Act of 1992, since the school's crime statistics reflect only those crimes reported to the University Police Department, and not those reported to other police departments or university officials.

After the complaint, the University released new figures for crimes on campus from 1996-1998. Before they claimed there were only 12 rapes reported. The new figures showed 47 rapes reported in that same time. Additionally, there were 53 more rapes in that same period which occurred off campus but were reported to the university's crime victim advocate.

Although this news was reported on television all over Florida, on the front page of the Sun, and in the Orlando Sentinel and other papers around the state, the Independent Florida Alligator, a daily with 30,000 circulation, utterly ignored the story.

UF victim advocate Maggie Girard also told the Gainesville Sun that in 1996 there were 75 domestic assaults and 32 stalking cases reported to her, in 1997 there were 91 domestic assaults and 34 stalking cases, and in 1999 there have been 87 domestic battery reports and 23 stalking reports. (Gainesville Sun, Sept. 19, 1999).