Content warning: The following discusses topics including sexual assault and violence.
The Suffolk University Police Department released its2024 annual report on crime and fire as required by The Jeanne Clery Act of 1990, which mandates the university to include the last three years of data on each report. Suffolk saw a slight increase in criminal offences over the 2023 school year, up from 2021 and 2022.
In 2023, Suffolk saw a total of 11 reported “criminal activities”. The law requires the university to include include reports of any criminal homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson.
Suffolk breaks down certain categories such as sexual assault into subcategories, which include rape, fondling, incest and statutory rape. SUPD listed one case of rape in 2023 down from two in 2022 and three in 2021. There were also three cases of fondling reported by the university in 2023.
Suffolk also reports different types of assault in subcategories: domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, robbery and aggravated assault.
The university had no cases of domestic violence, though it did report one case of dating violence. It also reported three cases of stalking up from zero in the previous two years, and two cases of aggravated assault on campus. Aggravated assault was down from five cases in 2021 and three cases in 2022.
Suffolk also reported one case of burglary in 2023, the only case on this current report.
The report also broke down hate crimes separately from regular criminal activity as outlined above. They describe the same crimes, just with added details of the reason for the report of a hate crime.
The university saw one hate crime reported last year, that being one case of simple assault reported to be on the basis of a disability.
SUPD made two arrests in 2023 for drug violations on campus. This is down from a peak of four arrests in 2021, and remains the same as the previous year in 2022.
SUPD also made a total of 124 referrals to other police agencies in 2023. This was a decrease of two from the previous two years of reporting by the university.
There were two reported cases of illegal weapons possession on campus. SUPD made eight referrals for drug law violations. SUPD also reported a total of 114 liquor law violation referrals.
There were no reported fire cases in 2023. The last reported fire was in 2022 when an electrical fire caused by a dryer was reported in Miller Hall, listed as 10 Somerset Street on the report.
