All institutions subject to the Clery Act must make two types of ongoing disclosures – 1.) Timely Warnings, and 2.) Emergency Notifications. Institutions that maintain a police or security department, including using contract security guards, of any kind must maintain a Public Crime Log.
Timely Warnings
Campus community wide timely warnings must be issued “as soon as the pertinent information is available” when any crime institutions must report in their statistics is deemed by the institution to “be a threat to other students and employees”. The only exception is for crimes which are reported in a Priviliged communication, such as with a licensed mental health counselor.
Emergency Notifications
Emergency notifications must be issued upon confirmation by responsible authorities of any “significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or staff occurring on the campus”. Notifications may be limited to only those segments of the campus at risk. The only exception is if issuing the notification would compromise efforts to contain the emergency.
Public Crime Log
Finally, institutions which maintain a police or security department of any kind must maintain a public written log of all crimes reported to the department (unless they are outside the Clery geography or patrol jurisdiction of the department). Most day-to-day crime information released under the Clery Act is through this log which must contain, at a minimum, the following information about each report –
- Nature (crime category or optionally a brief narrative description);
- Date and time reported;
- Date and time occurred (may be a range if the exact time is unknown);
- General location; and
- Disposition (if known).
The log must be made available for public inspection during regular business hours. New entries must be made within two business days, and kept updated for sixty days. After sixty days entries may be archived and made available for inspection within two business days of a request. Archived entries must be maintained foe a period of seven years.
Information in the log must not violate the confidentiality of any victim. Information may also be withheld at the discretion of the institution if there is clear and convincing evidence disclosure would jeopardize an ongoing investigation, the safety of an individual, cause a suspect to flee or evade detection, or result in the destruction of evidence until until such outcome is no longer likely to occur.
