Police put on more local pressure

As the new school year begins, so does a new aggressive initiative for campus security. With increased visibility as the goal, the University's Campus Police department set new safety provisions for this year, Commissioner John Kuprevich said this week. The new provisions consist of a walking escort service, construction of two mini-police stations and a communications program called "Penn for a Safe City," Kuprevich said. The police also improved current successful programs by installing more and better emergency blue-light phones and by enlarging the bicycle patrol squadron. The two mini-stations, which will be built at 34th and Walnut streets in front of the Funderberg Center and at 40th and Walnut streets, will have one officer stationed 24 hours a day and an emergency phone installed on the outside. Kuprevich said that University Campus Associates, a University subsidiary that manages many properties around campus, and campus police both saw the need for the new mini-stations so that officers are more available to different areas of campus. "We wanted higher presence visibility and presence in the east side," Kuprevich said. "We were looking for mini-station space. University City Associates and the whole area of 40th and Walnut need a police presence. They offered us space to create a presence." The UCA is paying the initial costs of the station on Walnut Street, but the University and the UCA will split the maintenance costs. Kuprevich said he hopes to see more mini-stations in the future. "We're moving towards mini-stations," he said. "I certainly think that it's a strategy that can be helpful in implementing community policing, and that has been an effort and focus of the department since long before I got here." The new transit system established by the University this fall implements Transit Stops, which Vice Provost for University Life Barbara Cassel said decreases inefficiency and increases student safety by making people travel in packs. "More people were using vehicles on campus and the foot traffic diminished," Cassel said. "We want to increase that foot traffic, because higher numbers of people will make for more activity and create a safer atmosphere." The University increased the amount of walking escorts, dressed in red shirts and carrying police radios, who take students from locations other than the Transit Stops and to a stop, said Cassel. Initiated by the Public Safety Communication Center, "Penn for a Safe City" is aimed at educating students about how to use the blue-light phones, what numbers to dial in an emergency and where to go when they need help. Many students do not know the emergency numbers and how to use the emergency blue-light phones, Kuprevich said. "We tried to find ways to saturate information and try to find ways of getting people to remember 511 is the emergency phone number," Kuprevich said. "Our effort, campus wide, is to get the same message through." Eight new blue-light emergency phones are being installed in heavy traffic areas on 40th, 41st and 42nd streets and St. Mark's Square. "They are tamper-proof phones," Kuprevich said. "They work like intercoms. There is no receiver, so there are no ear pieces to put ink on as jokes and no mouth pieces to unscrew. There are also no cords to cut." Another improvement on a semester-old, successful program is increasing the number of and use of bike patrollers, Kuprevich said. "We started the bike patrol last year and found it was very effective in patrolling and getting to areas of incidence," Kuprevich said. Currently, one team of bike patrollers are assigned on the beat from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and another team assigned from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., University Police Sergeant Ivan Kimble said. After more patrollers are assigned, there will be more shifts and the hours will extend indefinitely. In additon to all the visible changes to the campus police department, it has doubled in size from 40 to 75. The increase in staffers was called by Executive Vice President Marna Wittington. Also, the dispatchers who are trained officers will eventually be put on the streets, and their positions will be filled by trained civilians, Kuprevich added. "I always felt the dispatchers should be out on the streets, not in an office receiving phone calls," he said.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.