Drug and alcohol-related arrests on Texas Tech’s Lubbock campus rose by 40 percent in 2014 over the previous year, shows the annual Jeanne Clery Campus Security Report, released on Oct 1.
The increase reflects at least in part the growth of the on-campus population. An analysis by The Hub@TTU showed a positive correlation of .94 between the number of undergraduate students living on campus and the number of drug and alcohol arrests, combined, in the past three years.
According to Tech’s Institutional Research, 27 percent of undergraduate students live on campus, including 92 percent of first-year students.
Arrests went up in every category, the 2014 campus crime report shows. Weapon-related arrests increased from four to six offenses. Drug arrests rose by 58 percent and alcohol-related arrests rose by 20 percent compared to the 2013 numbers.
Alana Kiker/The Hub@TTU
Stephen Hinkle, administrative captain at the Tech Police Department, said the department did not do anything different in 2014 to increase arrests.
“We patrol outside of the residence halls and we do walk-throughs of the residence halls, and we patrol on game day,” Hinkle said. “So, it’s really no different than what we do every fall.”
A new element of the crime report is evident in the reporting of sex offenses, which for the first time appear broken down into specific categories. The report shows four reported rapes in 2014, compared to seven in 2013.
There were also five incidents of forcible fondling and six reported cases of stalking, both of which are new categories in the campus crime report. The requirement that universities report stalking incidents was imposed recently by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.
The Clery report includes crimes in on-campus buildings and housing, surrounding public property and non-campus buildings managed by student organizations. It does not include offenses committed in surrounding areas, such as Tech Terrace and North Overton, which are heavily populated by students.
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