Reports of alcohol violations in on-campus residences increased by about 13 percent between 2009 and 2010, according to an annual crime report released by UCPD last week.
The statistic does not necessarily mean more people are drinking, said Valery Holtom, judicial affairs coordinator for the Office of Residential Life.
She said alcohol public education has increased 20 percent on the Hill since last year.
Part of the education process included teaching students how to identify people who need help and to call the right resources, namely police or ORL. Anyone can write a report and submit it to the Office of Residential Life, Holtom said.
“Ideally we don’t want any reports, but we don’t want things to go unreported because people are trying to hide them,” Holtom said.
ORL provides the reports of alcohol and drug violations to UCPD, and the numbers are included in an annual report.
Under a law called the Clery Act, all universities that receive federal funding are required to outline crimes occurring on university property or in the area directly surrounding campus.
The statistics ORL uses for its own purposes are different from the Clery Act numbers. For one, ORL looks at the school year rather than the calendar year. It also uses a responsibility-based system to count violations.
For example, if a resident assistant finds 10 students in a room with alcohol, all 10 would be included in the Clery Act statistics.
ORL calculates its own statistics in a different way ““ if only two were drinking, ORL would identify those two people and only include them in their report.
Numbers change annually based on the fluctuating number of students living on the Hill, Holtom said.
Police also compile a separate annual crime report based on all calls UCPD responds to, said UCPD spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. That report was released earlier this year.