The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, November 3, 2006 Page: 7 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER NEWS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2006
Wm&
Beer sans clothes
MARSHALL ROBINSON/THRESHER
Bartender Paul Willma, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student, checks Sid Richardson Col-
lege senior Jeff Morrow's driver's license at Valhalla Oct. 31. Morrow stopped by for a drink during the annual
Baker 13 Halloween run.
CRIME
From page 1
"The penal code we use for charg-
ing people for offenses is based on
the Texas penal code," Taylor said.
"UCR is just a method that the federal
government uses for collecting data
and use their own definitions, which
are not necessarily — and in this case
particularly, not at all — consistent
with the statutes that the individual
states have."
Texas penal code classifies bur-
glaries based on evidence of unlaw-
ful entry, so thefts without proof
of unlawful entry are classified as
larceny-thefts, Taylor said. Federal
guidelinesclassifytheftsasburglaries
in instances for which there is no proof
that unlawful entry did not occur.
"In the case of one of the colleges,
(let's sayl you have a suite," Taylor
said. "If. unfortunately, someihing
was taken from one suitemate by
another suitemate and you couldn't
show that somebody forcibly came in
and (took) that, it would be a larceny
by state statue. However, if you don't
know who took it, it's a burglary under
the UCRbecauseyou have to presume
that it was somebody who didn't have
lawful reason to be in there. So it's a
different burden of proof."
UCR statistics are reported on
a monthly basis, so incorrect 2004
figures had already been submitted
to the FBI in January 2005. However,
crime figures are not reported to the
DOE until fall of the following year.
Taylor said Rice changed itsreporting
policies to follow federal guidelines
in time to correctly report its 2004
statistics in the 200.5-2006 issue of
SAFETY and its report to the DOE
in fall 2005.
"Between January 2005 and
August 2005, we realized that we
were using the state penal code for
reporting burglaries and went back
and reviewed the statistics for years
2002, 2003 and 2004." he said. "We
corrected the statistics using the
UCR definitions for the offenses
for those years before publishing
the 2005-2006 SAFETY document,
which was distributed to the campus
in September 2005, and (also before]
submitting the 2004 statistics to DOE
also in September 2005."
Rice has adjusted its past crime sta-
tistics with the DOE and in SAFETY.
According to the revised statistics.
Rice had 57 burglaries in 2003, 64 in
2004 and 56 in 2005.
"With that submission to DOE.
we also corrected the 2002 and 2003
statistic* submitted previously to
DOE, along with an explanation of
our mistake of using the wrong defini-
tions for the statistics in the previous
submissions," Taylor said.
He said Rice did not pay a fine
because the reporting errors were
unintentional.
"It wasn't maliciously [done] or by
intent; it was simply a logistical error
made by aclerk,"Taylor said. "As soon
as we realized it, we fixed it. I person-
ally — and I don't think anybody in
this department — ever would have
that intent [to underreport campus
crime] because our idea is (that]
the more information that gets out
there, the more people pay attention,
become aware or realize they need to
be concerned about things."
FBI statistics show that 51 burglar-
iesand 143 larceny-thefts were commit-
ted at Rice in 2005. The burglary figure
was revised to 56 in the DOE report
and in the 2006-2007 issue of SAFE'lY,
givinga ratio of about 2.51arceny-thefts
committed foreveryburglary.Thecity
of Houston has a similar ratio, with
27,541 burglaries and 72,476 larceny-
thefts committed in 2005.
The Wall Street Journal article
also reported that Rice declined
to comment on university crime-
reporting policies.
Taylor said Seward left a voicemail
received by a technical sergeant
unfamiliar with the Clery Act or
crime-reporting at Rice.
The Wall Street Journal declined
to comment on its article.
Taylor said many institutions,
especially those without law enforce-
ment agencies, have experienced
confusion about reporting crimes
in compliance with the Clery Act. In
2005, the DOE published 'Ihe Hand-
book for Campus Crime Reporting to
clarify reporting guidelines.
NOD
From page 1
party because there were too
many people there," Taylor said.
"RUPD had to hold them back
until it settled down."
Taylor said the low number of
arrests was not unusual because
NOD is well-handled.
"Over the course of these last
eight years or so, the party has
become one of the best organized
and planned functions on the entire
campus,"Taylor said. "It really does
go well and has consistently for a
number of years. Every once in a
while you have something off the
wall that happens, but the whole
party isn't that way."
Eighteen emergency medical
technicians — divided into nine
teams — were on duty at NOD,
and two privately owned ambu-
lances were hired for the night.
I )ecker said enough EMTs were
on duty to respond to all of the calls.
"last year we got to the point
where we maxed out our resourc-
es," I )ecker said. "Ifwehad had one
additional call, we would havehad to
break up our teams. Ibis year, we
almost had to use all of our teams
at once, but I believe one or two of
our teams were still available."
Decker said EMS expected
a higher number of calls than
were made this year because
there has been an unusually high
volume of EMS calls for the past
two months.
Kerner, a Wiess college junior,
said about 100 students helped
with security this year.
"I thought we had agood num-
ber of security," Kerner said. "It
worked out really well because if
there was a problem someplace,
however minor it was, you could
ask someone to move from one
place to another without having
too few security somewhere."
Kerner said she thought NOD
went well.
"Everyone was enjoying the
public party," Kerner said. "A lot
of people had very interesting
costumes—it seemed like people
were really creative this year.
Everything went smoothly, [and ]
people seemed to be cooperative
with everything."
Decker, Kerner and Taylor said
they do not think major changes will
be needed for next year's NOD.
"NOD is one of the best
organized and staffed events on
campus," Taylor said. "We tweak
these things as we go along."
Brown College sophomore
John Steinbauer said he thought
the theme this year was less
original than last year's.
"This [theme was] more
typical," Steinbauer said. "Last
year, you could do more fun
stuff with costumes."
Steinbauer also said he thinks
NOD should be free.
"[Other colleges] have free
parties," Steinbauer said. "I don't
think it's right for them to make
a profit when other colleges are
losing money."
Wiess College freshman Zach-
ary Wilson said he thought the
party was over too fast.
"I just thought it was pretty
crazy how people didn't care
what they were wearing, but the
party didn't actually start until
midnight," Wilson said. "People
didn't come until late."
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Brown, David. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, November 3, 2006, newspaper, November 3, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443090/m1/7/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.