The recent case of sexual abuse reported on campus will be included in the 2015 Clery Report, according to Troy University Police Chief John McCall.
The Clery Report is an annual report of crimes that occur on campuses that receive federal funding, as required by the Jeanne Clery Act.
“Sexual assault isn’t a crime,” McCall said of the common misconceptions in terminology. “There are sex crimes.”
McCall said that sex crimes are under Title 13 in the Code of Alabama, with rape in the first degree being the most severe. Sexual abuse lies below rape and sexual misconduct.
“It’s just like rape, really and truly, except there’s no intercourse,” he said.
The code states that sexual abuse is submitting another person to sexual contact without consent.
There is no entry for sexual assault in the Code of Alabama.
McCall said that sex crimes are classified in the Clery Report as either “rape” or “fondling,” and that this case will fall under fondling.
He said that he believed there was one case of fondling and no rapes reported on campus during the 2014-2015 school year, and that this was the first case of this type to be reported for the 2015-2016 school year.
The Clery Report for each school year is made available the following year.
“They will not be available until the end of this year,” McCall said of the figures for 2014-2015.
“If you compare Troy to Alabama, Auburn, South Alabama — for our size, we are far and above,” he said, regarding the trend toward low crime rates being reported every year. “No one’s got the reputation that we do.”
As for the recent string of incidents on the Shackelford Quad, McCall said that the university police are responding appropriately, but he is not worried.
“It’s just a fluke, I think, but we have responded,” he said, citing better lighting for that area and an increased police presence.
McCall also noted that the two other crimes recently reported were not cases of sexual abuse.
“We don’t know what his intentions were, because she ran,” he said about the first incident to be reported. “And the other guy in the quad claimed that he was robbed.”
Currently, no one has been caught, and there is no sign of connection among the three incidents.
“We’re just trying to make people feel safer,” McCall said.
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