CSAs who, in their professional capacity, learn of certain crimes must immediately report those crimes to the Clery Coordinator.
This guide provides definitions for the crimes that must be reported under the Clery Act. When in doubt, report the crime to the Clery Coordinator and they will determine if it qualifies as a Clery crime based on the definitions.
Criminal Offenses
Murder and Non-negligent Murder: the willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another.
- Includes any death caused by injuries received in a fight, argument, quarrel, assault, or the commission of a crime.
Manslaughter by Negligence: the killing of another person through gross negligence.
- Includes any death that is caused by something that a reasonable and prudent person would not do.
Sexual Assault (Sex Offenses): engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person’s safety or the safety of others; or suffer substantial emotional distress.
- Rape: the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus, with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. This offense includes people of all genders.
- Fondling: the touching of the private body parts of another person for the purpose of sexual gratification, without the consent of the victim, including instances where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent incapacity.
- Incest: sexual intercourse between persons who are related to each other within the degree wherein marriage is prohibited by law.
- Statutory Rape: sexual intercourse with a person who is under the statutory age of consent.
- In California, the statutory age of consent is 18.
Robbery: the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
The essential elements of a robbery are that it is committed in the presence of a victim (usually the owner or person having custody of the property); the victim is directly confronted by the perpetrator; the victim is threatened with force or put in fear that force will be used; involves a theft or larceny.
Aggravated Assault: an unlawful attack by one person upon another person for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.
- Include assaults or attempts to kill or murder; poisoning (including the use of date rape drugs); assault with a dangerous or deadly weapon; maiming, mayhem, assault with explosives; or assault with disease (i.e., when the offender is aware that he/she is infected with a deadly disease and deliberately attempts to inflict the disease by biting, spitting, etc.).
Burglary: unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft.
Motor Vehicle Theft: theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle.
Arson: any willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn, with or without attempt to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, etc.
Hate Crimes
A hate crime is a criminal offense that manifests evidence that the victim was intentionally selected because of the perpetrator’s bias against the victim. Bias is a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their race, gender/gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity/national origin.
Hate crimes include all the Clery Act crimes defined in the Criminal Offenses section, if there is evidence that a victim was chosen based on a category of bias. The following additional crimes are also hate crimes, again if there is evidence that a victim was chosen based on a perpetrator’s bias:
- Larceny – Theft: the unlawful taking, carrying, leading or riding away or property from the possession or constructive possession of another.
- Simple Assault: an unlawful physical attack by one person upon another where neither the offender displays a weapon, nor the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury involving apparent broken bones, loss of teeth, possible internal injury, severe laceration, or loss of consciousness.
- Intimidation: to unlawfully place another person in reasonable fear of bodily harm through the use of threatening words and/or other conduct, but without displaying a weapon or subjecting the victim to actual physical attack.
- Destruction/Damage/Vandalism of Property: to willfully or maliciously destroy, damage, deface, or otherwise injure real or personal property without the consent of the owner or the person having custody or control of it.
Bias Categories
- Race: a preformed negative attitude toward a group of persons who possess common physical characteristics, e.g., color of skin, eyes, and/or hair; facial features, etc., genetically transmitted by descent and heredity which distinguish them as a distinct division of humankind.
- Religion: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons who share the same religious beliefs regarding the origin and purpose of the universe and the existence or nonexistence of a supreme being.
- Sexual Orientation: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
- Gender: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a person or group of persons based on their actual or perceived gender, e.g., male or female.
- Gender Identity: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a person or group of persons based on their actual or perceived gender identity, e.g., bias against transgender or gender non-conforming individuals.
- Ethnicity: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, common culture (often including a shared religion) and/or ideology that stresses common ancestry.
- National Origin: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of people based on their actual or perceived country of birth.
- Disability: a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons based on their physical or mental impairments/challenges, whether such disability is temporary or permanent, congenital or acquired by heredity, accident, injury, advanced age or illness.
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Crimes
Dating Violence: violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. The existence of such a relationship shall be determined based on the reporting party’s statement and with consideration of the length of the relationship, the type of relationship, and the frequency of interaction between the persons involved in the relationship.
Domestic Violence: a felony or misdemeanor crime of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim; by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common; by a person who is cohabitating with, or has cohabitated with, the victim as a spouse of intimate partner; by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction in which the crime of violence occurred; by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction in which the crime of violence occurred.
Stalking: engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person’s safety or the safety of others; or suffer substantial emotional distress.
