In the late 1980s, celebrated victimizations of college students and grassroots efforts by victims and their families prompted Congress to pass the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990 that requires postsecondary institutions to disseminate crime statistics for their campuses annually. Using data from a victimization study of more than 3,400 college students, the authors examine whether statistics generated by this policy initiative provide an accurate portrait of on-campus crime. Results of their analyses cast serious doubt on the validity and reliability of the statistics generated by the act.
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