Nineteen-year-old Jeanne Clery was raped and killed as she slept in her dorm on campus at Lehigh University in 1986. Because of that, the Jeanne Clery Act was signed into law in 1990 and requires all colleges and universities to make a report available by Oct. 1 to the campus community that details crime on campus and its surrounding areas.

USF’s University Police complies with the Act yearly by publishing its Safety Guide. The 2006-2007 edition is now available, and UP puts a massive effort into getting the publication out to the USF community.

“Anyone who requests it can get it,” said Sgt. Mike Klingebiel, public information officer for UP. “We’ll mail it to anyone. We have actually put a flier out notifying all staff and students. 38,000 postcards went out notifying all we could on the Tampa and Lakeland campuses.”

Compiling the campus crime statistics – which, in compliance with the Act, must cover crimes that occurred in the previous three years and crimes reported to UP, outside law enforcement agencies and University officials – can be quite an undertaking.

“This year, we spent close to $4,000 (on putting out the postcards and the guide),” Klingebiel said. “We’re not even talking about the labor hours in collecting the data. We begin to collect that information in March.”

The Guide also highlights services on campus that the USF community can utilize to help promote safety on campus, such as Safe Team and the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) class.

“It’s very comprehensive,” said Klingebiel. “There’s not much else that we could put in there to add to everything that’s already (been published in previous editions).”

Though UP puts out the Guide yearly in compliance with the Act, Klingebiel said that UP has been participating in crime awareness efforts, such as putting out its activity reports, since the early ’90s, before the Act.

“We were doing it prior to (the Jeanne Clery Act),” he said. “We were in compliance with the spirit of the act prior to that act being enacted.”

UP makes the information on crime and crime prevention available, but it’s up to the individual to use that information to protect themselves, Klingebiel said.

“You’ve got to make a decision,” he said. “A sheet of paper will not protect you. It’s your decisions that will.”

The 2006-2007 Safety Guide, as well as all the Safety Guides through Fall 2001, can be requested from UP by calling (813) 974-2628, or viewed online at http://www.usfpd.usf.edu/clery.asp.