Clery Act Compliance: CSAs, Geography, and the Annual Security Report

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities that participate in federal student financial aid programs to disclose campus crime statistics, publish an Annual Security Report, and maintain specific safety notification and record-keeping systems. It is codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1092(f) and implemented through regulations at 34 CFR 668.46. The Department of Education enforces it, and enforcement can include substantial fines per violation.

Most of the difficulty in Clery compliance is not knowing the rule exists — it is applying it. Deciding which buildings count as “campus,” who on staff is a campus security authority, and which incidents belong in which crime category are judgment calls that recur every year and that institutions get wrong often enough to be fined for it. This guide focuses on those judgment calls, not just the statute’s outline.

Who the Clery Act applies to

The Clery Act applies to any institution of higher education that participates in Title IV federal student financial aid programs — in practice, nearly every degree-granting college and university operating in the United States, public and private, plus many proprietary institutions. It applies institution-wide, not just to a research office or a single campus; an institution with multiple physical campuses must comply separately for each one, per 34 CFR 668.46(d).

Clery geography: the first judgment call

Crime statistics must be reported for “Clery geography,” which is not the same as an institution’s full property portfolio. Under 34 CFR 668.46(a), Clery geography for annual reporting purposes has three categories:

• Campus — buildings and property owned or controlled by the institution within a reasonably contiguous geographic area, used in direct support of or related to the institution’s educational purposes, including residence halls.
• Noncampus buildings and property — property owned or controlled by the institution, or by a student organization officially recognized by the institution, that is used in direct support of or related to educational purposes, is frequently used by students, and is not part of the main campus — for example, a leased research annex, an off-campus fraternity house the institution recognizes, or a satellite clinical training site.
• Public property — public property within or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus, such as a sidewalk, street, or park bordering campus.

Every addition to an institution’s footprint — a new lease, a partnership site, a study-abroad location, an off-campus research facility — requires a fresh determination of whether it falls into one of these categories. Getting this wrong in either direction is a finding: under-including geography omits crimes that should have been disclosed, and institutions have also been cited for over-including or inconsistently including space year to year. The daily crime log (below) uses a slightly broader geography than the annual statistics do, which is itself a common source of confusion.

Campus security authorities (CSAs): the second judgment call

A campus security authority is not only sworn campus police. Under 34 CFR 668.46(a), the definition covers:

• A campus police or campus security department.
• Any individual or individuals with responsibility for campus security who are not part of a police or security department — for example, someone who monitors entry into institutional property.
• An individual or organization specified in the institution’s statement of campus security policy as one to which students and employees should report crimes.
• An official of the institution who has “significant responsibility for student and campus activities,” including, but not limited to, student housing, student discipline, and campus judicial proceedings.

That last category is where institutions consistently under-identify CSAs. It routinely reaches athletic coaches, residence life staff, student activities and Greek life advisors, study-abroad program directors, and clinical or field-placement supervisors — roles that do not sound like “security” but that meet the regulatory definition because of the responsibility they hold over students. Faculty members are generally not CSAs by virtue of teaching alone, and licensed pastoral or professional counselors acting within the scope of their license are specifically excluded when acting in that counseling capacity. Every identified CSA must be trained on their reporting obligation and must report Clery-reportable crimes disclosed to them for inclusion in the annual statistics, even where no formal police report is ever filed and even where the crime occurred off the geography the institution patrols.

What must be reported: the Clery crime categories

Under 34 CFR 668.46(c), an institution must report statistics for the three most recent calendar years for defined crime categories, occurring within Clery geography and known to a CSA or local police. The categories include criminal homicide (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, and negligent manslaughter), sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Following amendments made under the Violence Against Women Act, institutions must also separately report dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, using the definitions set out in the regulation. Arrests and disciplinary referrals for weapons, drug, and liquor law violations are reported as a separate category. Hate crimes — any of the above, plus larceny-theft, simple assault, intimidation, and destruction/damage/vandalism of property, where the victim was intentionally selected because of bias — are reported with the applicable bias category. Sex offense definitions and the hate crime bias categories were also revised to align more closely with the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS); institutions classifying incidents should work from the current regulatory definitions in 34 CFR 668.46 and its appendix rather than a general understanding of the terms, since Clery’s definitions do not always match state criminal law.

Timely warnings and emergency notifications are two different obligations

Institutions sometimes treat these as one requirement. They are not.

• Timely warning, under 34 CFR 668.46(e), applies to a Clery-reportable crime that has already occurred and represents a serious or continuing threat to the campus community. The institution must issue a warning promptly enough to help prevent similar crimes, while keeping victim-identifying information confidential.
• Emergency notification applies to a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to health or safety currently occurring on or near campus — an active threat, not a past crime. It requires immediate notification to the campus community upon confirmation of the emergency, without waiting to verify every detail first.

An institution’s annual security report must separately describe its policies for each. Confusing the two — for example, running a single “timely warning” process and using it for active emergencies, or vice versa — is itself a documented compliance gap, independent of whether either notification was actually issued.

The Annual Security Report (ASR)

Every institution must publish an Annual Security Report by October 1 each year, covering the three most recent calendar years of crime statistics along with required policy statements — including its policies on reporting crimes, timely warnings and emergency notification, prevention and awareness programming for dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, and missing student notification (for institutions with on-campus housing). The ASR must be distributed to all current students and employees and disclosed to the Department of Education, and it must be readily available to prospective students and employees. Because the underlying crime statistics come from CSAs, local law enforcement, and the campus’s own reporting systems, compiling the ASR is a year-round data collection process, not a single autumn task.

Institutions with on-campus student housing also have a related but separate obligation to publish an Annual Fire Safety Report under 34 CFR 668.49, covering fire statistics and fire safety systems in on-campus housing.

The daily crime log

Any institution that maintains a campus police or security department must maintain a written, easily understood daily crime log of alleged criminal incidents reported to that department, using a somewhat broader Clery geography than the ASR (it extends to areas within the patrol jurisdiction of the campus police or security department). New entries must generally be logged within two business days of the report, the log covering the most recent 60 days must be open to public inspection, and older entries must be made available within two business days of a request.

Enforcement and penalties

The Department of Education enforces the Clery Act primarily through program reviews, and violations can result in a fine per violation. That maximum per-violation fine is adjusted for inflation under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 and published in the Federal Register; as of the Department’s January 2025 adjustment, the maximum stood at $71,545 per violation, and federal agencies did not apply a further inflation adjustment for 2026. Because fines are assessed per violation — for example, per misclassified crime or per year of an inaccurate statistic — a single compliance gap discovered during a program review can multiply quickly. The Department can also, in more severe cases, limit, suspend, or terminate an institution’s participation in federal student aid programs.

How Clery relates to Title IX, VAWA, and FERPA

These obligations overlap without being identical, and institutions need to track them as related but separate compliance tracks:

• Clery’s VAWA amendments require statistical reporting and prevention programming for dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, and require certain procedural disclosures for sexual assault; this is a reporting and disclosure obligation, distinct from Title IX’s civil-rights investigation and grievance process for sex discrimination and sexual harassment. See CASRAI’s guides on the Title IX coordinator role and the Title IX investigation procedure.
• Clery statistics are anonymized aggregate counts, not individual case records, and the Clery Act itself does not require or prohibit any particular disciplinary outcome.
• Institutions must reconcile Clery Act disclosure obligations with FERPA‘s restrictions on disclosing personally identifiable information from education records; Clery has its own specific carve-outs (for example, permitting disclosure of the outcome of certain disciplinary proceedings to a victim), and institutions should not assume FERPA automatically overrides a Clery disclosure requirement or vice versa — the two statutes are independent legal regimes that happen to intersect on campus safety data.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Clery Act apply to community colleges and for-profit institutions?

Yes. It applies to any institution participating in Title IV federal student aid programs, regardless of institutional type, size, or whether it is public, private nonprofit, or for-profit.

Do Clery crime statistics include crimes reported to a therapist or ordained clergy member?

No. Licensed pastoral counselors and licensed professional counselors are excluded from the campus security authority definition when acting within the scope of that license or certification, specifically so students retain a confidential reporting option. Institutions are, however, required to encourage these counselors to inform those they counsel of any procedure for voluntary, confidential reporting for statistical purposes.

Who at an institution is responsible for Clery Act compliance?

The Clery Act does not mandate a specific job title the way Title IX requires a designated coordinator. In practice, most institutions designate a Clery compliance officer or coordinator, often housed in campus police, public safety, or a dedicated compliance office, responsible for CSA identification and training, geography determinations, statistics compilation, and ASR publication.

Does an incident have to result in an arrest or conviction to count in Clery statistics?

No. Clery statistics reflect crimes reported to a campus security authority or local law enforcement, not confirmed convictions. A reported incident is counted based on the CSA’s or police record of the report, independent of any subsequent investigation, prosecution, or disciplinary outcome.

What is the single most common Clery Act finding?

Program review findings recur most often around the two judgment calls this guide focuses on: incomplete or inconsistent identification of campus security authorities (especially staff whose “significant responsibility for student and campus activities” is easy to overlook), and incomplete or inconsistent Clery geography determinations as an institution’s off-campus footprint changes.