Monday, October 1, 2012

Clery Act reporting: copying and pasting?

The University at Albany Police Department's Annual Safety Report/Clery Act Report for 2011 http://police.albany.edu/ASR.shtml on page 58 states:

"The DCJS Sex Offender Registry site may be found on the web (See the link to the right)"

Since there's no link to the right within the PDF that I can see, it seems to be copied and pasted from elsewhere, perhaps from the website.

There is in fact an older version of the registry still on Albany.edu that contains the same above text. It has no date on it, but from the appearance of the page and links on the page that have since been renamed, it may date from between September 2006 and 2009. Because of one of the people named, late 2007 might be the earliest possible date.

That page suffers from nearly the same flaw described in the last blog post, University at Albany Police Department mathematics: 3=4=6. Part of it is consistent:

"There are currently two (2) registered sex offenders enrolled at the University. The following Information has been released:"

However, it then goes on to list three (3) offenders. Thus 2=3. Counting even just to three, sadly, appears to prove too challenging?

Possibly far more care should be taken in writing the Clery Act Report. The NYS Comptroller has after all found that UAlbany has had a number of Clery Act violations in the past:

"DiNapoli: SUNY Colleges Inconsistently Reporting Crime Statistics" http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/oct08/102208.htm

"Compliance with the Clery Act" http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093009/07s121.htm

"Compliance with the Clery Act (Follow-Up Report)" http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093010/09f46.htm

"'We certainly comply with Clery to the letter,' said UAlbany Police Chief J. Frank Wiley. 'We will at times go beyond Clery, when the circumstances warrant.'"
Parry, "Crime and college; Off-campus incidents aren't always reported." Albany Times Union. May 11, 2008: A1. http://albarchive.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=6550616

EDIT: The undated (ca. 2007-2008) Sexual Offender Registry announcing "two (2)" sexual offenders that then listed three (3) now redirects to UPD's main page. I think it was done around October 22 or October 23, 2012. Google's last cache of it was Oct 14, 2012 18:39:32 GMT. I know it hadn't been changed as of October 19, 2012. Baby steps, I guess.

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