The UC Police Department’s Annual Security Report for 2011 revealed there were 41 recorded instances of burglary on the UCSD campus and its affiliated areas in 2010.

“Theft of unsecured property, [including] laptops, continues to be an issue.” Police Chief Orville King said in an email.

King emphasized the importance of using locks and keeping one’s property safe to prevent burglary.

The University has successfully reduced annual motor vehicle thefts on campus, which dropped from 54 to 24 since 2008.

The report indicates one instance of murder on the UCSD campus on Oct. 29, when the dead body of Carlsbad resident Lorena Gonzalez was found in a burning van in Lot 701. This is the first recorded murder on the UCSD campus in recent history.

In addition, there were 57 liquor law arrests in 2010 from 86 in 2009, and 16 drug arrests in 2010 from 40.

This is largely due to changes in policing outlook for major events such as the Sun God Festival.

“Enforcement of alcohol laws [arrests] were down, due largely to a change in tactics and philosophy at the Sun God Festival – with greater emphasis on keeping officers in the field to ensure public safety
rather than focusing on arrests,” King said. “Enforcement actions were used more selectively during the festival in 2010 as a tool, not a goal.”

According to Police Captain David Rose, the report statistics do not necessarily communicate the exact year-to-year changes in criminal activity at UCSD, in part due to differences in accounting for crimes from year to year. The report’s counts for liquor laws discipline rose from five to 1,050 and the counts for drug laws discipline from 17 to 94 over the past year due to the inclusion of new disciplinary data
from the Student Conduct Office and UC Police Department officials.

“These changes reflect a more effective, efficient and thorough way of reporting these violations,” King said.

King added that the sample size and crime statistics made it difficult to estimate long-term crime trends.

“Numbers of crimes in other categories [besides burglary] were relatively unchanged in 2011 from previous years,” King said.

The report contains statistics describing counts of crimes at UCSD for 2008, 2009 and 2010 using information compiled from the UCSD Police Department, the Campus Security Authorities, the Student Conduct Office and other campus areas. The statistics are separated into 15 categories, from less severe crimes such as liquor law arrests to the severe crimes such as homicide, and are organized by the location of the crime.

The reports only take into account crimes reported to the campus police and security authorities and do not take account for unreported crimes or those reported to other agencies.

The UCSD police department is legally required to release the annual report as part of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act, a federal law passed in 1990. Reports of liquor law arrests dropped from 86 to 57 since 2009 and drug law arrests dropped from 40 to 16 since 2009.