Forcible sex offenses on Tennessee college campuses increased by 26.6 percent in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. That includes an increase in the number of reported rapes from 51 in 2014 to 56 in 2015.
The data comes from the 2015 “Crime on Campus Report” released last month by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The annual study compiles crime data submitted to TBI by the state’s colleges and universities through the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS). Among the report’s findings:
- Crime reported by Tennessee colleges and universities decreased by 7.0 percent from 2014 to 2015.
- Twenty-nine percent of all 2015 offenses reported were categorized as larceny/theft.
- Assault offenses increased by 1.4 percent between 2014 and 2015.
The TBI strongly discourages the comparison of institutions’ statistics. The factors impacting crime vary by community, and rudimentary comparisons will likely result in inaccurate and generalized conclusions of the relative safety of one campus over another.
The full “Crime on Campus’ report,” along with similar studies dating back to 2001, is online for review at tn.gov/tbi/article/recent-publications.
