THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996              TAG: 9610140032
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

U.S. IS CRITICIZED FOR LACK OF EFFORT IN MONITORING DATA

Skeptics of campus crime statistics say colleges aren't the only ones at fault.

They blame the U.S. Department of Education for failing to monitor the crime statistics and blocking efforts to ensure greater accuracy.

``At the very least, they can spend a little more energy enforcing'' the Student Right-to-Know Act, said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington. ``Until the heat has been put on them, they haven't done that.''

The criticism of the agency escalated this year after the New York Times printed an interview with Assistant Secretary of Education David Longanecker. In the article, published in January, he said the agency would not ``establish a major monitoring effort in this area. We have limited resources.''

Last month, the U.S. House approved a resolution asking the department to ``play a more active role in monitoring and enforcing compliance'' with laws governing campus crime reporting.

The education department has also been criticized for not yet submitting to Congress a ``status report'' on campus crime reporting. Under law, the report was due last year. In congressional testimony in June, Longanecker said the report would be out by January.

The study, he said, ``will provide useful and unique information about the level of campus crime and efforts that have been undertaken to make college campuses safer for students.'' But it ``will not provide institution-by-institution comparisons.''

After the House passed its resolution, the education department last month cited Moorhead State University in Minnesota for releasing inaccurate crime statistics and not making its annual crime reports public. The department said it might assess penalties against the school if the problems weren't corrected in 30 days.

It was the first time the government had taken action against a school found to violate the 1990 Student Right-to-Know Act.

S. Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, a national group that seeks to promote awareness of campus crime, said the action was a good ``first step.''

But some of the critics are still disheartened that the department helped block the Open Campus Police Logs bill, designed to provide greater access to campus police records. The bill died in the recently concluded session of Congress.

The bill would have required all campuses to maintain daily logs of crime incidents that would be open to public inspection. In his testimony, Longanecker said the bill would not allow police officials ``to withhold information if it would threaten an ongoing investigation.'' The bill, he said, ``would not provide more protection to the campus community than is already available.''

Goodman said, however: ``It wouldn't have violated privacy concerns. It would force colleges and universities to treat crime reporting the way every other agency in the country does. . . .

``What the department should be doing is take a leadership role on this issue and suggest some ways these problems can be dealt with.''

KEYWORDS: SECURITY STUDY STATISTICS HIGHER EDUCATION

CAMPUS CRIME COLLEGE CAMPUS by CNB