Georgia Southern’s Annual Security Report (ASR) was released on Sept. 24, 2021 and detailed statistics from all campuses regarding reported crimes and disciplinary actions that occurred within campus property. 

With few exceptions, all reported statistics were significantly lower in 2020 than they were in 2019. These examples are most obvious when reading the information regarding the Statesboro campus. 

Liquor law violations dropped from 192 accounts in 2019 to 120 in 2020, nearly a 38% decrease.

Drug law violations dropped from 123 to 89, nearly a 30% decrease. 

While at first glance this may seem like a positive trend, the likelihood is that we will not know the significance of these numbers for some time, possibly until after we receive next year’s report regarding 2021.

During his most recent interview on Oct. 10, 2021, President Marrero mentioned that these numbers would be difficult to interpret for some time. 

“The jury’s out of that… Really as we compare this fall so far (2021), we can’t compare it to last fall, we have to compare it to the fall of 2019 to see if we’re seeing any updates… so we’re really at a flat level based on ‘19.”

One of the most challenging aspects of this anomaly is that data on Armstrong’s campus was already fairly small in quantity.

For example, only 4 disciplinary actions regarding alcohol violations were taken in 2020, compared to 29 the year before, over an 85% drop, seemingly impossible through natural circumstances. 

The impact of this anomaly remains to be seen, but it appears that the data between 2021 and 2019 will be a more accurate representation of these trends on campus. However, with the pandemic ongoing and some restrictions still in place, it may be difficult to tell how much of an anomaly the 2021 numbers may be as well.