<p>No question. The OPE Federal Campus Crime statistics are an imperfect measure of drinking, drug use, sex crimes, hate crimes, illegal weapons possessesion, burglaries, and the other things required to be reported. However, when a prospective student is told by another high school senior that “pot smoking is rampant” at a college and not rampant at another, one would expect to see some statistical correlation, somewhere. </p>
<p>I would not rely on the OPE crime stats as an absolute measure of anything except what they are: federal mandate to report certain categories of arrests and disciplinary actions. I would, however, urge every prospective student to take a look at the numbers. They are just one of a dozen or more statistical measures (diversity, finanicial aid, frat membership, surveyed drinking rates, etc.) that, taken together, provide a reasonably clear snapshot of a college’s campus culture.</p>
<p>The Harvard School of Public Health surveys show that nationally, marijuna use (within the prior 30 days) runs about 17% compared to their measure of high-risk drinking in the prior 14 days (44%). They find many of the the same correlations for marijuana use as they do for high-risk drinking. And, in fact, they find a strong correlation between marijuana use and binge drinking. </p>
<p>The OPE crime stats tend to support this. The schools with relative higher numbers of alcohol arrests and disciplinary actions also tend to have higher number of drug law actions. My theory on that is that drunk students are more likely to do something stupid to call attention to themselves and get busted. In reading the school newspaper accounts, it seems a common mechanism for a marijuna charge is a student stopped by police for public drunkenness and finding a joint in his pocket.</p>
<p>There does seem to be some correlation in the OPE crime stats with the degree of on-campus alcohol enforcement. For example, Earlham (a dry college for students of all ages with strict enforcement) reports more alcohol disciplinary actions than Swarthmore (where an alcohol disciplinary action generally requires disruptive behavior). But, both schools (which have similarly low “binge-drinking” rates) report low numbers compared to schools with statistically high drinking rates. Makes sense. Generally, the more drunks you have stumbling around, the more trouble they are going to get themselves into.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, if it looks like a “party” school (euphemism for getting wasted), walks like a “party” school, and quacks like a “party” school, it’s probably a “party” school. Not too many folk, including the students there, put Swarthmore high on the list of all-star “party” schools.</p>