An aerial photo of the University of Kansas campus in August 2015.

Reported crime on the University of Kansas’ Lawrence campus hit another low in 2024 — fueled, in part, by a dramatic multiyear drop in drug offenses — university leaders announced Wednesday.

The KU Police Department took 481 criminal offense reports in 2024, according to the latest statistics. That’s down about 6% percent from a year ago. The 2024 mark is lower than any year in the last decade, other than the 2020 pandemic year when campus operations were greatly reduced.

KU set a new 10-year low in the category of drug and narcotics violations. The police department recorded only four campus violations in 2024. That was down from six a year ago, but the bigger change comes when you look back to the years just prior to the pandemic.

The Lawrence campus from 2016 through 2019 averaged 68 drug violations per year. Since the pandemic in 2020, the KU campus has averaged 11 such cases per year.

KU has been following a national trend. Nationwide drug arrests fell from 1.56 million to 1.16 million from 2019 through 2020. That 25% drop didn’t receive major national attention, in part, because it was somewhat expected as social gatherings, nightclubs and a host of other entertainment options where large numbers of people gathered were largely shut down during the pandemic.

But what has happened next has been less intuitive. Drug arrests have remained well below pre-pandemic levels. The Council on Criminal Justice’s 2024 report that measures crime trends in 38 large U.S. cities shows drug arrests have remained largely steady from 2021 through 2024.

That means total arrests are well below pre-pandemic levels. Drug offense rates in 2024 totaled about 300 per every 100,000 people in the population. That’s down from about 420 per 100,000 people in 2019.

The drop at KU has been even more dramatic. While nationally the numbers have remained steady since 2020, drug offense rates on the KU campus have continued to fall. The 2024 totals were the third consecutive year KU has posted a decline in drug offenses. As a result, KU has seen a 93% drop in drug offenses since 2019, well above the 28% drop registered nationally.

Answers to why drug offenses have declined so much nationally or at KU have not been abundant. The 2023 report by the Council on Criminal Justice noted the dramatic decline in drug cases, but said it wasn’t sure why it happened.

“The sustained decrease in drug offenses requires additional investigation,” the 2023 report stated.

A year later, the 2024 report didn’t provide any definitive answers. It did note, though, that violent crimes by youths seem to be on the decline, even though there has been worries that aggressive use of social media have made youths angrier. However, the report said that reduced substance use along with a decrease in party-going may be working to reduce violence levels.

At KU, the numbers suggest a change in behavior after the pandemic, but James Druen, deputy chief for the KU Police Department, said he hasn’t heard much speculation about why that would be the case.

“But if that is what caused it, that would be one of the good things to actually come out of it,” Druen told the Journal-World

Druen said his department remains focused on the day-to-day activities it can undertake to try to prevent drug offenses.

“We do more education programs now, and we have been doing a lot of proactive patrolling,” he said.

One thing that hasn’t happened is a change in philosophy about when to cite someone for a drug offense, Druen said. The state of Kansas hasn’t taken any steps to legalize marijuana, for example, so there hasn’t been any reason for the KU Police Department to change how it cites people for violations.

“They’re the ones that decide what’s legal and illegal,” Druen said of the state.

A big change for the KU Police Department in 2024, however, was a fuller staff of officers. The department is currently down six officers from its full allotment of 35 positions. But that is better than the last several years when it was common for the department to have a shortage of more than 10 officers.

While the shortage is less severe than past years, it still leaves some gaps, and Druen said the department has focused on new tactics aimed at trying to ensure the officers the department does have are covering as much territory as possible.

“We are making sure that our people get out of their cars more and have more of a presence that way,” Druen said.

Druen said the most notable crime trend on the KU campus during the past year might have been the number of people who were taking up residence in KU classroom buildings. The Journal-World reported on that trend in February, as department leaders reported to the Kansas Board of Regents that an increased number of homeless individuals were inappropriately trying to stay in the buildings overnight.

As the Journal-World reported, the KU Police Department began doing special nighttime building sweeps to find those individuals. On Tuesday, Druen said those patrols were effective and the problem of overnight trespassing at KU buildings has greatly declined.

Here’s a look at other numbers from KU’s 2024 Crime Statistics Report:

• Simple assault: 17 offenses, up from 10 a year ago. The 2024 total was the highest since 2016.

• Auto burglary: 6 offenses, down from 8 a year ago. The 2024 number is down from a recent high of 23 in 2021.

• Driving while intoxicated: 10, down from 21 a year ago.

• Weapons violations: 1 offense, up from none in 2023. During the last 10 years, KU hasn’t ad a year with more than one weapons offense.

• Rape: 1 offense, down from 2 in 2023.

The rape statistics are a good reminder that KU’s annual Crime Statistics Report is not the only way that KU measures sexual assault offenses on campus. All universities are required to complete an annual report in October that lists a variety of offenses that were reported on campus. That report, known as the Clery Report, showed KU had seven rapes reported on campus in 2023, while KU’s Crime Statistics Report shows two rapes during that time period. The Clery Report for 2024 won’t be released until October.

The Clery Report and the KU Crime Statistics Report have some differences in how they collect information, with one of the biggest being that the Clery Report includes reports of crimes that may not ever be reported to police. For example, if a student tells a counselor or other such employee at KU that they have been raped, that KU employee is required to submit that for inclusion in the Clery Report, even if the victim ultimately decides not to report the crime to the police department.

It also is worth noting that KU’s Crime Statistics Report only measures reports of crimes that occur on the actual KU campus. Crimes involving KU students that occur off of campus aren’t included in the KU numbers.