CUNY could be hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for failing to report felony crimes on its campuses, as required by law — and a national safety expert yesterday told The Post that federal education bigs should investigate the lapse.
“The bottom line is that students aren’t being protected as much as they should be, and that needs to be fixed,” said Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus, an organization that spearheaded the law requiring all colleges to report campus crimes.
An exclusive story in yesterday’s Post detailed how five CUNY colleges — including the John Jay College of Criminal Justice — failed to report 73 percent of felonies occurring on their campuses.
The findings, by the State Comptroller’s Office, indicated that 78 out of 107 serious crimes that occurred in 2006 and 2007 were not reported on the schools’ Web sites for students, as the Clery Act mandates.
That law permits fines of up to $27,500 per violation and the loss of federal financial aid to noncompliant institutions.
Carter, who wrote several Clery Act amendments, noted how the audit reveled that CUNY administrators had identified similar noncompliance issues a decade ago, a key reason why he believes the federal Department of Education needs to review CUNY’s practices and policies.