UD Public Safety enhances campus safety efforts

3:30 p.m., Sept. 5, 2003 --Within the last year, the city of Newark and the University of Delaware community have experienced an increase in crimes—many of them crimes against persons, including robberies and aggravated assaults.

In an effort to maintain the safe environment members of the University campus have come to expect, the Department of Public Safety took several steps beginning last spring to specifically address the increase in crimes, including

Establishment of a task force enhancing cooperation between Newark and UD Police to curb the rash of robberies;
Visits with area apartment complexes to encourage management to enhance their own safety practices;
Expanded student escort services;
Addition of specially trained student security patrols on the campus;
Stepped up community policing efforts to make officers more visible on campus and to ensure students are aware of their presence;
Installation of a new technology system to better track police activity; and
Emphasis on long-standing safety mechanisms on campus, such as the network of more than 200 blue light emergency telephones that connect callers directly to Public Safety.

With the start of the new academic year, these efforts continue, along with a change to University policy giving trained University Police access to firearms in their patrol cars under carefully defined circumstances.

“UD Police have always had access to weapons in certain circumstances, but this change is intended to provide a higher level of safety to all members of the University community,” Vice President for Administration Maxine Colm said. “It does not alter UD’s longstanding tradition of not arming our police on a daily basis. What it does do is acknowledge that, in light of the recent level of criminal activity in our area, UD feels it is appropriate to have weapons available in our police cars for use by officers certified to use them under carefully controlled circumstances.”

Police officers who will have access to firearms are all certified by the state to carry weapons, have had extensive firearms training and are certified three times a year in weapons handling.

According to the policy change, the standard issue weapon, a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, will be safely secured in each patrol vehicle for access and carrying under very specific conditions, such as selected criminal investigations assignments, special duty assignments with other police agencies or situations where UD police officers are responding to a reported incident that involves the use, display or threat of a deadly weapon.

“This area’s increase in certain crimes counters national trends,” Lawrence O. Thornton, director of public safety at UD, said.

As of early August, Thornton said, robberies in the Newark area were up 40 percent over the same period last year, and, of these, 15 of the cases involved 19 students as victims. In nearly half of these robberies, the perpetrator had a gun or a knife.
“As our officers are involved in investigating more incidents involving persons using weapons, this change is our policy reflects the reality of our modern world,” he said. “In fact, many other public institutions, such as Temple, Delaware State, Penn State, Connecticut and Maryland, already have armed police forces.”

“We have a close working relationship with University of Delaware Police,” Newark Chief of Police Gerald T. Conway said, “and we welcome any efforts that enhance our ability to work together and better protect the members of our community.”

After an increase in street crimes last winter, UD and the Newark Police Department formed a joint task force that put more officers on patrol, while stepping up crime prevention and investigative efforts.

In March, additional Newark police officers and extra UD police officers began patrolling city streets and areas adjacent to the campus from 9 p.m.-4 a.m. At the same time, members of the departments met with representatives of area apartment complexes to make sure they were aware of lighting and safety issues.

That increased effort built on a range of campus safety efforts already in place, such as regular campus patrols by police in vehicles, on bicycles and on foot, as well as a patrols by student police aides of exterior residence hall areas during late night hours. Public Safety’s walking escort program— available during the hours of darkness to students, faculty and staff—was expanded beyond the campus to include selected off-campus locations.

In addition, the University has added several thousand outdoor lights to the campus over the past few years, and each year, Public Safety sponsors campus walks with students to determine where new or additional lights may be needed.

For women, Public Safety offers the RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) program, a 15-hour course taught by trained members of the Department of Public Safety.

The University’s philosophy is to fully publicize campus-related crime to ensure that the University community is made aware of public health and safety issues so they can make decisions about their own safety and take necessary precautions, Thornton said.

In keeping with this philosophy and in keeping with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act, information about campus security programs, recommended personal safety practices, the authority of the University Police, campus disciplinary procedures and campus crime statistics for the most recent three-year period is available online at [http://www.udel.edu/PublicSafety/index.html] or may be requested from the University of Delaware Department of Public Safety, Crime Prevention Unit, Newark, DE 19716-4210.

UD received the 2001 Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Award, a national award that honors schools and individuals that have done extraordinary things to make students safe. Established in memory of a Lehigh University freshman who was murdered in her dormitory in 1986, the award is given by Security on Campus Inc. , which was organized by Howard and Connie Clery, Jeanne’s parents, to further the cause of campus safety.

Photo by Kevin Quinlan

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