DOES ON-CAMPUS CRIME COVERAGE FOLLOW THE RULES OF NORMAL CRIME COVERAGE?
The biggest area of concern is the campus “police blotter.” Because of the sensitive nature of accusations and guilt, especially in today’s litigious society, the “police blotter” must be careful with how they report campus crime. Some papers, like Penn State’s Collegian, prints the names of students arrested or summonsed in crime incidents, while Hofstra’s Chronicle only prints the names of off-campus people involved in crimes. This is a result of a combination of editorial decision and public safety/police reporting. As a public university, Penn State is policed by town police, and as such, students are no different from other residents of the town of State College, Pennsylvania. On the other hand, Hofstra is a private university and hires their own “public safety” squad to enforce the school’s rules. The students who pay to attend the school are handled differently than off-campus non-students, mainly in prosecution, where students go before a student tribunal while non-students go
