The university released its 2025 Annual Security Report on Wednesday. Credit: Jack Westerheide | Managing Editor for Multimedia
Ohio State’s 2025 Annual Security Report released Wednesday, highlighting a decrease in assault, motor vehicle theft and alcohol law violations compared to previous years.
The Clery Act, passed in 1990, requires college campuses to report campus crime data —including sexual assaults, hate crimes, car thefts and burglaries. Along with these reports are policies and procedures to enforce campus safety for students, according to the report.
This year’s report shows a drastic decrease in several crimes committed on campus, motor vehicle theft has the greatest with 69 reports to last year’s total of 114, around a 39 percent decrease in motor vehicle theft reports.
Arrests for alcohol law violations decreased by 53.3 percent with 62 reports in 2024 compared to 130 reported in 2023.
Dan Hedman, a university spokesperson, said in an email the majority of incidents in 2023 happened when Morgan Wallen, a country artist, performed at Ohio Stadium on Aug. 11-12 of that year.
“Given that this event was not held again in 2024, and our 2024 numbers are consistent with 2022 alcohol arrest numbers (57 on-campus), the 2023 increase is likely an anomaly,” Hedman said.
The most significant decrease in reports for this year are fondling reports, with a total of 62 reports compared to last year’s 366 reports — an 83.1 percent decrease.
Hedman said the elevated number of reports in 2023 was not usual and this year’s numbers reflect what is typically reported.
“In 2023, one matter, unrelated to Strauss, resulted in 300 incidents of fondling in the on-campus category,” Hedman said. “The incidents were reported to have occurred between 2019 and 2023 but they are counted in the year the[y] get reported. This was thoroughly investigated and resulted in the separation of two employees.”
None of the fondling reports for 2024 included a report from the Dr. Richard Strauss case. Strauss was a sports team doctor and physician at the Student Health Center from 1978-98 and sexually abused at least 177 students, per prior Lantern reporting.
The crime rate of rape on campus has remained relatively similar, with 58 reported cases in 2024 compared to 59 in 2023.
There were 13 reports of aggravated assault in 2024, similar to that of 2023 and 2022, which both sit at 14. Burglary received 35 reports for 2024, a slight decrease from 40 in 2023.
Domestic violence and dating violence are the only two crimes to have a slight increase in reports. Compared to the domestic violence report in 2023, there is a 66.7% increase this year with a total of 20 reports, compared to 12 last year. Dating violence has increased 29.2 percent, with 31 reports in 2024, compared to 24 in 2023.
