Letter: To Stop Crime, Build Bridges Instead of Building Walls

The following is an open letter to University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich. I am writing to commend you, belatedly, for your response at a recent Trustees meeting to the proposal to erect "a low wall" marking "where the campus starts and ends," as an effort to deter "crime." (DP 10/17/91) You asserted that such a fortress mentality was inconsistent with the University policy of working with community members to make the entire University area safe. As a West Philadelphia resident who was mugged on 44th street two years ago, and as a University student who is working to improve student life, I applaud your assertion. As a student of the built environment, I can envision Trustee Eininger's suggested wall accomplishing nothing more than alienating the entire "off-campus" community, including students like myself who have never lived on campus. What more use can it serve than as a symbol of privilege, wealth and exclusivity, precisely the sort of attributes that attract "criminals" to the area? If the Trustees really want a closed campus where the "criminal element" can't intrude, why not a high wall, say twelve feet high with nice rolls of barbed wire at the top and armed guards at the gate? Discussing crime in terms of "students" versus "West Philadelphia residents," as is the convention at this University, obfuscates the fact that approximately 5000 students are West Philadelphia residents. The West Philadelphia community also includes substantial numbers of University faculty and staff. And the vast majority of the rest of the community comprises working- and middle-class families who own their homes, volunteer at their children's schools, hold block parties and community picnics, shop in lively business districts like the one at 52nd and Market, and populate a seemingly endless number of churches. There are also depressed and abandoned areas that everyone who lives here knows to avoid, with crack houses and gangs that pose much more of a threat to the people forced to live next door than to those of us who spend our time in the polished halls of Penn. Contrary to what seems to be the popular belief, my years living in West Philadelphia have convinced me most residents unaffiliated with Penn do not spend much time preoccupied by the University and its transient community down around 38th Street. There is a lot more to do in West Philadelphia than "prey on" University students. And those individuals desperate, depraved and violent enough to perpetrate street crimes on innocent victims are much more likely, according to police statistics, to act in the areas around the campus proper, not on the campus itself. Eininger's wall will not address this, nor will it address the thefts and assaults perpetrated on campus by Penn students and employees. The University supposedly has a policy of treating West Philadelphia as its home, not as its adversary, and of treating West Philadelphia's children as potential future Penn students. Its commitment to that policy has recently been questioned by a lawsuit, brought by city and University groups, alleging that the University is not upholding an historic agreement with the city to provide substantial scholarships for Philadelphia residents. At a time when the University's efforts to mitigate economic and class barriers are being formally questioned, it strikes me as grotesquely inappropriate to suggest the erection of an actual brick barrier between the University and the city. Thank you, Commissioner Kuprevich, for the plainclothes officers and the patrol cars which regularly pass my window, offering reassurance to all the residents of University City; thank you for you sophisticated and realistic approach to safety and crime issues; and thank you for saying no to that wall. GRETCHEN HACKETT Doctoral Candidate American Civilization Member GSAC Executive Committee

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