With the determination of crusaders on a mission, Howard and Connie Clery are aiming to protect millions of college students from the same fate as their daughter -- a victim of campus crime.

"We fight for the right to know -- it's our only protection," Connie Clery said, explaining the purpose of the family's efforts.

After their daughter Jeanne was raped and murdered in her Lehigh University dorm room in 1986, the Clerys became strong advocates for campus security and founded their own lobbying organization. Fighting from the offices of Security On Campus Inc., located in King of Prussia, they have channeled their grief into becoming full-time lobbyists for nationwide campus security information legislation.

Security On Campus Inc. assists victims of campus crimes by familiarizing them with their rights and helping them to find attorneys. The organization itself litigates against schools found negligent in security practices.

The husband-and-wife team founded the organization with the damages they received from an out-of-court settlement of their civil suit against Lehigh. The Clerys and their friends worked out of the Clery house for two years before expanding to an office in 1988.

They are lobbying in favor of a bill detained in the state Senate Appropriations Committee. Senate Bill No. 683 requires all Pennsylvania campus police officers and campus security officers to develop and maintain daily logs of each valid complaint and all crime reports. Five other states have passed similar legislation.

"It is the right of students to see this kind of information," Connie Clery said. "A crime is a crime whether it is committed by a student or not. There shouldn't be a double standard."

To be successful in their quest, Security On Campus Inc. must fight the schools themselves.

Past legislation requiring colleges and universities to publicize their crime statistics have proven ineffective at many schools, said Lynda Getchis, the organization's administrative assistant.

Getchis said many university police services supply students with incorrect information, using euphemisms and recoding crimes. It gives students a false picture of what is going on, she said.

"That is not the law -- that is breaking the law," Getchis said.

Bill Moerschbacher, University Police Services assistant shift supervisor, said University police make crime statistics information readily available through a daily police log, various pamphlets and anannual ad in The Daily Collegian.

"We are quite open with our statistics here," he said.

But not everyone is as cooperative as Penn State police. The Clerys face powerful obstacles in their uphill battle for security legislation.

Connie Clery said it is very difficult to get security legislation passed because there is constant conflict with college and university lobbyists.

"(The lobbyists') avenue is a silent, underhanded one -- they connect with all the legislators," she said, explaining that colleges and universities do not want to reveal their crime statistics to students for fear it will bring them a poor reputation.

Although opposing lobbyists are fighting against campus crime legislation, the final decision rests upon the legislators.

Paul Dlugolecki, executive director of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, said he does not expect any consideration for Senate Bill No. 638 to come out of the committee. He said the state Senate has not seen interest from students or any impetus for the bill to move out of the committee.

Elizabeth Sheehan, a budget analyst in Sen. Vincent J. Fumo's office, said the bill landed in the state Senate Appropriations Committee because it could possibly incur costs to state-school budgets. Fumo is the majority chairman of the committee.

"If there were costs, they would be minimal," she said, adding that any bill that could pose costs to the state must pass through the committee.

University Police Supervisor Wayne Weaver said Penn State's daily police log service does not impose any cost to the state.

In 1990, a bill started by the Clerys became an act that required schools to annually report their crime statistics to the U.S. Department of Education.

Since its conception, the organization has worked to have 17 state laws and three federal laws passed.