About CollegeSafetyData

Free, public access to campus crime statistics reported under the Jeanne Clery Act — making college safety data transparent and accessible.

What is the Clery Act?

The Clery Act is a federal law requiring colleges and universities participating in federal financial aid programs to disclose campus crime information.

Named after Jeanne Clery, who was murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986, the Act ensures transparency about campus safety.

Publish Annual Security Reports with 3 years of crime data

Report specific crime categories for campus areas

Issue timely warnings about safety threats

Maintain a public daily crime log

Data Source

U.S. Department of Education

Campus Safety and Security Database

ope.ed.gov/campussafety

Coverage: 2015-2024Updated: November 14, 2026

Crime Categories

The Clery Act regulation (34 CFR 668.46) lists the categories institutions must count and defines them. Open a section for the definitions in plain words; the Methodology page links to the official text and explains how institutions count.

Murder — The willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.

Negligent manslaughter — The killing of another person through gross negligence.

Rape — Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

Fondling — Touching the private body parts of another person for the purpose of sexual gratification, without the consent of the victim, including when the victim cannot consent because of age or mental incapacity.

Incest — Sexual intercourse between persons related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law.

Statutory rape — Sexual intercourse with a person who is under the statutory age of consent.

Robbery — Taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody or control of a person by force or threat of force or violence, or by putting the victim in fear.

Aggravated assault — An unlawful attack by one person upon another to inflict severe or aggravated bodily injury, usually with a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.

Burglary — The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft, including attempts.

Motor vehicle theft — The theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle, including joyriding (vehicles taken by people without lawful access, even if later abandoned).

Arson — Any willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, and so on.

Domestic violence — A felony or misdemeanor crime of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, a person who shares a child with the victim, a person who lives or has lived with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner, or others the regulation lists under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction.

Dating violence — Violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim.

Stalking — A course of conduct (two or more acts) directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety or the safety of others, or to suffer substantial emotional distress.

Added to the Clery Act by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013; ED's final rule took effect on July 1, 2015.

Weapons law violations — Violations of laws or ordinances prohibiting the manufacture, sale, purchase, transportation, possession, concealment or use of firearms, cutting instruments, explosives, incendiary devices or other deadly weapons.

Drug law violations — Violations of laws prohibiting the production, distribution and/or use of certain controlled substances and the equipment or devices used to prepare or use them.

Liquor law violations — Violations of state or local laws or ordinances prohibiting the manufacture, sale, purchase, transportation, possession or use of alcoholic beverages, not including driving under the influence and drunkenness.

These count people, not incidents: people arrested, and people referred for campus disciplinary action who were not arrested. A person both arrested and referred is counted once, as an arrest.

Geographic Definitions

On-campus

Any building or property the institution owns or controls within the same reasonably contiguous geographic area and uses for its educational purposes, including residence halls; and property within or next to that area that the institution owns, another party controls, is frequently used by students and supports institutional purposes (such as a food or retail vendor).

Residence halls*

Of the on-campus crimes, those that took place in dormitories or other residential facilities for students on campus. A subset of on-campus, not a separate location.

Non-campus

Any building or property owned or controlled by an officially recognized student organization, or owned or controlled by the institution, used for its educational purposes, frequently used by students, and not within the same reasonably contiguous geographic area as the campus.

Public property

All public property, including thoroughfares, streets, sidewalks and parking facilities, that is within the campus, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus.

Avoid Double-Counting

Residence hall incidents are a subset of on-campus totals. Our calculations exclude residence halls when summing totals.

How We Calculate

14,081

Campuses

Every campus that reported to DOE in at least one year of 2015-2024; each has a school page

Years of Data

Calendar years 2015-2024

Total Counts

Sum of on-campus + non-campus + public property (excluding residence halls to avoid double-counting)

Per 10k Rates

Incidents per 10,000 on-campus FTE students (FTE without students enrolled only online) of the whole institution: a size-adjusted figure, not a measure of risk. Which institutions rate rankings list and rank is described on the Methodology page.

Percentages

Each school's share of the total for the selected ranking (national, a state or the Ivy League)

Important Limitations

A short version; the Methodology page has the full list and sources.

Higher reported numbers do not by themselves mean more danger

Clery figures count reports. A higher count can reflect more crime, more reporting, or both, and a lower count does not show that a campus is safer.

Reporting Lag

DOE releases data ~1 year late. The 2025 release contains 2022-2024 statistics.

Counted by Year Reported

Each year counts crimes reported that year, including some that happened earlier. Many reports of past abuse at one school can make one year jump.

Many Crimes Are Never Reported

Clery data counts only reported incidents. In the Bureau of Justice Statistics' analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey, 80% of rape and sexual assault victimizations of female college students aged 18-24 (1995-2013) were not reported to police. That survey does not measure reports to campus officials, which Clery figures also include.

Source: BJS, Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013 (2014)

Reporting Varies by School

Each institution classifies incidents, designates who receives reports and maps its own campus, so the same incidents can be reported differently.

Definitions

The current categories took effect with ED's VAWA rule on July 1, 2015. This site starts in 2015; do not join its figures with earlier years.

FTE Data Limited

Rate calculations use IPEDS FTE enrollment data, available for 2015-2024 (2024 is provisional).

What is FTE?

Full-time equivalent fall enrollment from NCES: full-time students plus part-time students weighted by factors that depend on the type of institution and student. It counts enrolled students only, for the whole institution.

Small Numbers Swing

Rates on fewer than 20 incidents are shown but not ranked, and every rate has a 95% interval (Methodology page). One incident more or less can move a small school's rate a lot.

Geographic Context

Urban and rural campuses differ: public property next to a city campus is not comparable with a rural one.

Ready to Explore?

View rankings, trends, and detailed breakdowns for thousands of U.S. colleges.

View Rankings

Open Source

CollegeSafetyData is fully open source. Our data pipeline, methodology, and this website are publicly available for review, audit, and contribution.

We welcome collaboration from researchers, journalists, and developers who want to improve campus safety transparency.

View on GitHub

Additional Resources

Clery Center

Nonprofit focused on campus safety

ED Campus Security

Official guidance: the Clery Act Appendix and the 2016 Handbook

34 CFR 668.46

The Clery Act regulation and its definitions

VAWA Final Rule (2014)

Regulations adding VAWA offenses, effective July 1, 2015

FBI UCR Program

National crime reporting standards

Contact & Feedback

We welcome feedback, bug reports, and collaboration inquiries from researchers, journalists, and the public.

[email protected]Report an issue on GitHub