MORGANTOWN, W.Va. The latest Clery Act report from WVU for the Morgantown campus has been released and shows declines in important categories and increases in categories that most would expect.
University Police Department Chief Sherry St. Clair said the school makes it a top priority to educate students about safety, provide resources to promote safety, and send immediate “warning” and “notice” alerts when incidents on campus dictate.
“The numbers are low compared to how many students we have,” St. Clair said. “You’re going to have a little bit of everything no matter where you’re at; if you go to other schools, you’re going to see the same thing, but we try to be very vigilant and very proactive in our community.”
The car theft category now includes e-bikes and was up by one; stalking reports were up slightly; and a total of 24 domestic violence offenses were reported—that’s up two from the previous year, and 11 of those were reported from J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital. The report did include two hate crime reports, one assault related to sexual orientation bias and the second a vandalism incident attributed to religious bias.
“They are now in that category, so we’ve seen that go up just a little bit,” St. Clair said. “Our domestic violence reports went up by three from last year; stalking was up one or two, and those are going to fluctuate as years go by.”
Reports of rape, fondling, and aggravated assault reports were down, while reports of liquor law violations rose by 16 the year before but were down by 191 from 2021.
“We have seen a decrease in some of our sexual assaults by two, fondlings by two, and some of our aggravated assaults went down,” St. Clair said.
There were 30 fewer drug violations reported in 2023, and St. Clair believes that is due to the different forms marijuana is available in today.
“One of the bigger drugs on campus is marijuana, and the ways it’s used is changing—it’s vaped; there are edibles, so you’re not able to catch people as much when they used to smoke it all the time,” St. Clair said.
Computer-based fraud is not included in the report, but St. Clair said more students are being victimized online. Additionally, she said before breaks and during the year constantly offer tips to prevent burglaries and the theft of property.
“Be more aware of who you’re talking to online and make sure you’re locking your stuff up,” St. Clair said. “We’ve done some big pushes right before the students go home to make sure that they’re locking valuables up.”