Personal Safety Preparations BEFORE Leaving Home

Here in Kansas City, we unfortunately have two examples of how quickly daily tasks, such as a summer job or a quick run to Target, can turn tragic because of a violent criminal act. Thankfully, both Ali Kemp's and Kelsey Smith's families have transformed their losses into educational opportunities, not only in our own community, but also on a national level. Personal safety is of utmost importance to students preparing to leave for college. Just like all of the other aspects of the college search and selection process, learning to protect yourself needs to be accomplished in advance and attended to often. As part of the college search and campus visit experience, college bound students and their families should be intimately familiar with the Jeanne Clery Act. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, originally called the Campus Security Act, is a federal law requiring colleges and universities across the United States to fully disclose information about crime on and around their campuses.

The law is directly tied to participation in federal student financial aid programs, so it applies to most higher ed institutions, whether public or private, and is monitored and enforced by the Department of Education.

The "Clery Act" is named in memory of a Lehigh University freshman, Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered while asleep in her residence hall room in 1986. After her death, it was discovered that students had not been told about 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh campus during the three years before her murder. Jeanne's parents joined with other campus crime victims and persuaded Congress to pass this law, known previously as the "Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990."

The law was amended in 1992, adding a requirement for schools to afford campus sexual assault victims certain basic rights, and was amended again in 1998 to expand the reporting requirements. The 1998 amendments also changed the name of the law in memory of Jeanne Clery. The law was most recently amended to require schools to notify the campus community about public "Megan's Law" information about registered sex offenders on campus.

Most campuses make their crime statistic information available on their school websites, but prospective students may request this information from the admission office, as well. Typically, the statistics will be for the previous year, but are a good indication of the types and frequency of campus crimes. http://www.securityoncampus.org/schools/cleryact/cleryact.html The two young women mentioned at the beginning of this blog post still may not have survived their attacks if they had been properly trained to protect themselves, but that is the hope. And both families have made it their mission to educate others, both male and female, on techniques that will heighten the probability of survival when in a violent attack situation. The Ali Kemp Educational Foundation www.takedefense.org Kelsey's Army/Kelsey Smith Foundation www.kelseysarmy.org Workshops, complete with hands-on instruction, are offered across the KC Metro, and even nationally, teaching students of all ages how to properly protect themselves. A self-defense class, even several classes, should be a priority on the list of activities for any family preparing to send a child to college.