By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Reported rapes at Princeton University increased in 2016, but it remained unclear how many people, if any, were arrested and charged for the 13 offenses that occurred primarily in residential facilities.
The rape total was contained in the federally mandated Clery report that Princeton and other universities are required to produce, with the document released this month. With campus sex crimes getting increased attention nationally, the 13 reported rapes were up from seven in 2015 and from eight in 2014.
In 12 of the 13 cases last year, the offenses took place on campus, while the other occurred in a so-called “non-campus building or property,” according to the report.
“It is difficult to interpret the meaning of particular statistics for this category in a particular year. The numbers change from year to year but are based on calls from the community to DPS,” said Stefanie Karp, director of operations at the University Department of Public Safety, in an email. “The university has been focused on educating the community as part of our bystander intervention training programs.”
Mayor Liz Lempert said Wednesday that she had not seen the Clery report. She said the university reports sexual assaults to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
“And the same would happen with any sexual assaults reported to our police department,” she said.
Karp said her department received “eleven campus security authority reports, which provided little information because they were provided to DPS for statistical purposes only.”
“Two reports were made to DPS by the victim directly,” she continued. “Those cases were investigated and sent to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, which determined there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.”
Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Casey A. DeBlasio said that of the rape cases her office prosecuted in 2016, “as best I can tell, no one was charged for any rape that happened at the university last year.”
Princeton released the findings two years ago of a survey that found 13 percent of all students were the victims of “non-consensual sexual contact.”
“The only acceptable number of rapes on a college campus is zero,” University President Christopher L. Eisgruber said in a 2015 essay in the college alumni magazine.
The university had formed a committee to look at ways to reduce sex assaults. University English professor Deborah Nord, who had helped lead that committee, on Thursday directed questions about the Clery report to the head of the university communications department.
“Sexual assault is a horrible, horrible thing,” Mayor Lempert said. “As far as I’m concerned, any number is too many. But I think it’s hard to draw any conclusion about a trend or anything like that just looking at two years.”
She said there is a “serious national problem in terms of how sexual assault is handled in our judicial system.”
“And oftentimes, victims are re-victimized. And I feel like it’s important that we have a system that’s fair but also encourages people to step forward when there’s been a crime committed.”
Elsewhere in the report, the university shows that there were a total of 39 sexual offenses reported to what Princeton calls “confidential counselors.”
In other offenses, the Clery report showed four aggravated assaults, five robberies, nine motor vehicle thefts and 33 burglaries.
