RICHMOND, Va. -- In what it said was an unintentional omission, Virginia Commonwealth University has revised the number of sexual assault cases that occurred on its main Richmond campus over the last two years -- leading to an increase in several categories, including rape, stalking, and dating violence.
In a statement, VCU said after it had published its annual safety report, which lists crime data compiled by its police department and other law enforcement agencies, the school's Title IX Office "discovered data submitted by the office was not included".
That data has since been added to a report which states in a footnote: "The above numbers were revised on Nov. 28, 2023 after VCU Police discovered statistics originally provided by Title IX were unintentionally omitted from the data originally included in the 2023 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report."
The university said while it encourages victims of sexual violence to file a report, they can choose to do so through police, Title IX, or both.
"VCU Police takes each report of sexual assault seriously. VCUPD uses the You Have Options Program (YHOP), which gives survivors control over how much information they want to share with police and if they want to pursue an information-only report, a partial, or a full criminal investigation. This is a survivor-centered approach and we have specially trained, victim-witness officers on staff," the university added in a statement.
Among the changes were the number of reportable rape cases. Footnotes stated there were three cases in 2021 and 2022, but 2021 has since changed to six cases and 2022 has changed to 19 cases.
The report also showed an increase in other on-campus categories including fondling (which was changed from three to 11 in 2022 and three to eight in 2021), dating violence (which changed from two to seven in 2022 and five to nine in 2021), and stalking (which changed from three to nine in 2022 and nine to 14 in 2021).
VCU said it is following Clery Act guidelines to correct and republish its report.
"In addition to the revised report, VCU Police are implementing new internal measures to ensure data integrity, including quarterly meetings with campus partners to review the data and resolve discrepancies. We apologize sincerely for the unintentional errors that occurred," added the university.
The statement added that no police chief wants to see an increase in crime data except sexual assaults because it "represents increased reporting by survivors" as the category is underreported nationwide for various reasons.
"The risk of sexual violence in higher education is present and is related to a variety of factors, however, when a survivor reports at VCU, we can assist them in getting the resources they need. The university offers resources such as counseling, advocacy, and medical care; additional information is available on the VCU Police website under the 'Sexual Violence' tab," they added.
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