EDITORIAL: Second chance for safety

Public Safety ManagingPublic Safety ManagingDirector Thomas SeamonPublic Safety ManagingDirector Thomas Seamonneeds to make sure hisPublic Safety ManagingDirector Thomas Seamonneeds to make sure hismaster safety plan respondsPublic Safety ManagingDirector Thomas Seamonneeds to make sure hismaster safety plan respondsto community concerns.Public Safety ManagingDirector Thomas Seamonneeds to make sure hismaster safety plan respondsto community concerns._____________________________ It didn't work. "Uniform security standards" for campus buildings were never developed. The safety kiosks, "Community Walks" and higher visibility of University Police -- including the promise to double the number of officers trained to patrol on bicycles -- have not significantly impacted the campus crime rate. Neither have these changes resulted in students feeling genuinely safer on campus, or in an improvement of "our real security as we study, work and live at Penn," the objective Rodin set out in her plan. Worst of all, Rodin promised that her plan would be released for additional comment after a group of "special advisors" -- law enforcement veterans from the Philadelphia Police department, Secret Service and FBI -- had visited campus and examined how it would be implemented. But Rodin's plan was not revised to reflect the consultants' comments, nor was it then offered to community members as a work-in-progress. However, Public Safety Managing Director Thomas Seamon has realized Rodin's plan came up short. He's working to release a master plan of his own early next week. We applaud both his insight and his efforts to date, and hope his plan will offer new, innovative strategies to combat the chronic problems of property theft, robbery and assault that continue to plague students in University City. In the wake of Mathematics graduate student Al-Moez Alimohamed's murder in August 1994, Rodin released a statement responding to the crime. "The safety of our students?is critically important to the University," she said at the time. "For Penn, there can be no higher priority." We remind Rodin and Seamon of her words then. They ring even more true now, as we await the next master safety plan. We expect that the new document will be a lightning rod for action and progress, rather than just another blueprint for discussion and show.