LOS ANGELES (U-WIRE) — Since Oct. 28, the University of Southern California and other colleges and universities nationwide have had to comply with new regulations concerning sex offenders on campuses.

The Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act, passed in 2001, clarified language in the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, allowing sex-offense records to be made public. It also expanded the Cleary Act of 1998, requiring sex-offender information to be included in crime statistics released yearly by campus police departments.

Street Smart, an annual report released by the Department of Public Safety and available through the department’s website at dpsw.usc.edu, features a four-page section on sexual assault, fulfilling part of the legislation’s mandate.

“USC has been inaccurately — and unfairly — characterized over the years as having a high crime rate and being in a dangerous neighborhood,” according to the report. “Unfortunately, this characterization has become part of the urban mythology that is bantered about, selectively reinforced and seldom validated against the facts.”

A total of 10 sex crimes, including six rapes — all committed by an acquaintance of the victim — were reported to DPS in 2001, down from 12 reports in 1999 and 10 in 2000. Of the reported rapes in 2001, equal numbers occurred on and off campus.

Since the fall semester started, two rapes have been reported — both within this month, according to DPS crime logs.

Despite the declining rates at USC, sex crimes remain a highly prevalent issue on college campuses. At Ohio State University’s main campus in Columbus, Ohio, students were gripped with fear after five attacks by a serial rapist were reported last month.

Ohio State students were warned about the attacks by fliers the university posted on and around campus, a bulletin on the school website’s home page and mandatory meetings for all students living in the dorms.

Throughout the course of a typical school year, 1.7 percent of female college students become victims of rape, and 1.1 percent experience attempted rape, a 2001 study by the U.S. Justice Department reported. Nine out of 10 women were raped by someone they knew.

In October 2001, California made history by becoming the first state in the nation to pass legislation requiring convicted sex offenders either attending or working on college campuses to register with school police. Offenders at schools without police squads were required to register with local law enforcement.

“We know that parents worry a great deal about the safety of their children when they are away at college,” Assemblywoman Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, who sponsored the bill, said in a news release.

The legislation, however, only required offenders to register at state schools.

Although a directory of sex offenders working for or attending USC is unavailable online, anyone with Internet access can log on to a website and search for the location of sex offenders within Los Angeles County. Located at gismap.co.la.ca.us/sols/ viewer.htm, the site allows users to search by neighborhood, ZIP code or school for the locations of sex offenders in Los Angeles County.

A searchable registry of sex offenders is accessible through special terminals located both at and near police stations, a service mandated by the 1996 Megan’s Law.

The county has more registered sex offenders than any other in California, according to statistics released by the state attorney general. As of Nov. 1, Los Angeles was home to 17,129 sex offenders, including more than 500 in the North University Park neighborhood.

By contrast, neighboring Orange County has 3,122 registered offenders. San Francisco County has just 901.

Cornell University students can follow a link on the campus police department’s website which leads to a searchable directory of sex offenders in New York, but the school does not place any further restrictions upon the role of sex offenders working or studying on campus.

New York’s Binghamton University has a stricter policy — it requires a list of sex offenders both currently and previously affiliated with the school, even though there is none to list yet.

To help prevent sex crimes, DPS offers the Rape Aggression Defense program, offered continually throughout the year. The four-week, 12-hour class teaches self-defense options and techniques for women to apply in case of an imminent or actual attack.