DOTS Shuttle-UM
Identification checks on Shuttle-UM buses, drunken driving prevention and sexual assault education are some of the potential safety priorities highlighted in this year’s Campus Safety Report, presented Wednesday to the University Senate.
The annual report from the senate’s Campus Affairs Committee — based largely on input from a March 12 community forum — comes on the heels of a February murder-suicide that left two students dead and another injured, plus a string of robberies earlier in the semester. Police have emphasized visibility in the weeks after the crimes, as both a crime deterrent and a comforting presence, said University Police spokesman Sgt. Aaron Davis.
“We are increasing our visibility in areas where students congregate, so the criminals will see that we’re there and think twice about committing a crime,” he said.
Although the university’s constant flow of information on safety issues can be frustrating at times, Senate Chairwoman Martha Nell Smith said, mobile and email police alerts are critical ways of making sure the university community knows about dangerous situations.
“If they weren’t there, we wouldn’t be informed about a lot [of] things,” Smith said. “I personally have found the campus police really responsive, and I think that’s a really terrific thing.”
Visibility and a consistent presence have been the force’s focus of late, Davis said, but the safety report also mentions a number of other potential safety-oriented reforms.
Simply raising awareness of existing safety programs such as NITE Ride and nighttime police escorts is a priority, said Sarah Heidt, the Campus Affairs Committee coordinator.
“This campus has a lot of resources that a lot of people don’t know about,” she said.
University Police are also collaborating with the Department of Transportation Services to enforce university identification checks for patrons boarding Shuttle-UM buses, Davis said.
“[Several recent local arrests] came from people who came off the shuttle bus, who had no business being on campus, were not students, not faculty or anything of the sort,” Davis said. “They came on campus to make crimes.”
Shuttle drivers rarely check for university ID cards when passengers are boarding, even though the official policy states to check them.
“It’s a policy, but it’s a policy that’s not being followed,” Davis said.
Not checking IDs can give criminals a convenient, economical way to get to the campus and cause problems, he added.
“Are there other ways to get on the campus? Sure. The campus is open,” Davis said. “But we don’t want to give them quick transportation onto campus for free.”
The university has agreements in place with Hyattsville and other surrounding communities, Davis said, and the average campus visitor coming for a weekend visit with a friend would not be affected if IDs are checked.
“That’s not the sort of person we’re looking for,” he said.
Senators also discussed whether the campus could offer University Police-aided rape defense classes, something Davis said police had tried before but discontinued because of lack of interest.
“We initially got a lot of interest; a lot of people signed up for it. They would back out; they wouldn’t show up. Attendance was very poor,” he said.
The safety report also mentions a taxi service offered by university athletic teams. At some institutions, an audience member at the report’s presentation said, teams provide players with cars so they can pick up potentially intoxicated students during periods of “high partying.”
Sometimes such programs are free, and sometimes they come in exchange for an unspecified donation to the team. The program could help prevent drunken driving and serve as a team fundraiser at the same time, the forum member said.
Beyond larger program reforms, University Police Chief David Mitchell offered four tips in the report to enhance campus safety on an individual level.
Mitchell emphasized the need for “situational awareness” — students’ understanding of their own surroundings — and encouraged students to guard personal property to avoid theft, not hesitate to call 911 in potential emergencies and not engage in “high-risk behavior.”
Officials stressed students should always call for police help in emergencies, and said they hoped the senate’s February passage of an expansion to the Good Samaritan policy — which offers protection from university sanctions to students who call for help for others in the case of alcohol-related incidents — to include drugs would encourage more students to reach out for help if necessary.
“I think safety is always something we need to work on, that you can never relax, but I do think we’ve made great strides,” Smith said.
Changing the perception some have of College Park as a crime-ridden city is not a significant concern of the committee, Heidt said. Crime has declined throughout the county in recent years, although the university still faces challenges inherent to a modern institution in the heart of an urban, low-income area, Davis said.
“On any campus, the amount of crime is going to be less than in the surrounding area,” he said, “unless your campus is in the middle of a farm.”
