While a newly elected councilman and university President Wallace Loh are questioning why College Park does not have its own police force, several city and University Police officials said creating a new department is not cost-effective.
The Prince George’s County Police Department has jurisdiction over the city and shares concurrent jurisdiction with University Police in some heavily populated student spots. Although crime in the county, city and on the campus is down overall, Loh said careful consideration is needed to ensure this rate continues to decline.
“The two things that hold back College Park — and I learned this because I hear this from prospective parents — is when they tell me they have kids and they’re not sure they want to send them to College Park because they have some real misgivings for two reasons: safety and downtown, like the area around Route 1,” Loh said. “There’s a perception of crime. … I have a responsibility for the safety of our students.”
This summer, Loh assembled a task force charged with looking into how to improve safety in the city — and he put the notion of creating a College Park Police Department on the table. However, some city officials said the issue was visited four years ago, which resulted in a 150-page cost-benefit analysis that determined it would be more cost effective to hire three full-time officers from the county to patrol the city n addition to University Police.
The 2007 report concluded that creating a new department would exceed funding available to the city and that it would be required to build a jail, which Mayor Andy Fellows said the city could not afford.
“The more we looked into it, the more we realized it just didn’t make sense,” he said.
According to Director of Public Services Bob Ryan, the city currently budgeted $1,083,845 for fiscal year 2012 to allow county officers to patrol the city in areas where University Police do not have jurisdiction, a program that has been in place since 2004. This is the equivalent of 9.22 full-time police officers working directly for the city, Ryan wrote in an email.
“They do not report to University Police,” Ryan wrote. “They take assignments directly from the City and also follow County Police procedures.”
District 3 Councilman-elect Robert Day said during his campaign that while the city has been increasing its funds for the contracted county police officers, it needs to continue this buildup and work toward developing a police department of its own.
“I think we have to take small steps and continue growing what we have,” Day said. “It’s a big task, but you look at the little towns around us, and you’ll see a number of them have their own police departments.”
Creating a police force for the city would be a complicated process, according to University Police Chief David Mitchell. Mitchell said a city police department would not eliminate the dual jurisdiction that exists today between University Police and county police — it would just add another department to the mix.
“We enjoy working the concurrent jurisdiction because, simply, that’s where our students live and engage in recreation,” Mitchell said. “If you look at the crime numbers, you’d have to say it works, because crime is very, very, very low. … We have a very good working relationship with P.G. County, but this is a local decision. Students can make their voices heard to College Park council and see where it goes from there.”
The University Police launched a City Multiagency Service Team this semester, which is a collaboration between University Police, the Prince George’s County Police Department, the College Park Fire Department, the City of College Park, the County Liquor Board, the State’s Attorney’s Office and the university’s Office of Student Conduct.
In addition to pinpointing areas in the city in need of increased police attention, the department will look at the results of CMAST to analyze if a city police deparment will help decrease crime.
Mitchell added that the final decision to create a separate city police department is up to the city council.
Senior staff writers Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lauren Kirkwood contributed to this report. egan@umdbk.com
