(Radio Iowa) – The most recent federal data shows the number of stalking reports connected to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University campuses increased last year, but officials say the statistics are misleading. For the University of Iowa, there were over 100 separate reports classified as stalking, but Mark Bullock — the university’s assistant vice president for public safety — says only 45 police reports were filed.

“And 32 of those occurred at our hospital,” Bullock says. “That includes a significant amount of violations of no-contact orders. These families that we’re bringing into our children’s hospital sometimes don’t have the greatest family dynamic, they have histories of domestic violence — things that have happened away from our campus — and they bring with them no-contact orders and they’re at the hospital together, violating those no-contact orders. That counts as a stalking case.”

The six other University of Iowa cases classified as stalking in the annual federal report on campus crime statistics were actually extortion cases according to Bullock. “A trend that we call ‘sextortion’ where somebody will reach out to somebody on social media, start a conversation, they share inappropriate pictures,” Bullock says, “and then it’s ‘I’m going to send these pictures to your family if you don’t send me an Apple gift card.'”

Michael Newton, I-S-U’s vice president for public safety, is also chief of campus police. He says most of the I-S-U cases identified as stalking in the federal report are things that happen online.  “It’s something we’re seeing not just at Iowa State, but nationally we’re seeing this trend,” he says. Newton says most stalking reports at Iowa State are about unwanted messages rather than in-person behavior. “What I’ve found with these cases, though, involving our students generally if they get authorities involved, if they get police involved we tell the person to knock it off, they stop,” Newton says. “…I’ve had a lot of conversation with my student advisory board and others about what can we do to get people to have better interpersonal skills and be able to tell people themselves that ‘Hey, I don’t want to have contact anymore,’ or ‘I don’t want to be involved with you,’ instead of a text message.”

Newton says it’s worth noting the annual federal report on crime data from all U-S college campuses defines stalking as not just engaging in conduct that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety or the safety of others — which can be lead to criminal charges. It also defines stalking as activity which can cause emotional distress. “You will see things that appear in our statistics that aren’t state law violations. They’re more of an annoyance. They’re more of a harassment issue,” he said. “…One we had recently was just unwanted email, text after text.”

University of NORTHERN Iowa officials report there were 16 reports of stalking and harassment on the Cedar Falls campus last year.