Police to reexamine crime log

May add second log for crimes out of territory Managing Director of Public Safety Tom Seamon announced a reassessment yesterday of the decision to stop recording crimes outside of University Police jurisdiction in police log books. The decision was announced last week in an internal memo sent by Director of Police Operations Maureen Rush. "That original decision was not carved in stone," Seamon explained. "In light of the reaction we've gotten, we're talking about either keeping two logs -- one for the crimes within our coverage area, and one for crimes outside of it," he said. "Or one log with a clearer separation between the two types of crimes." The log books contain the date, time and description of every incident reported to University Police. They were mandated as part of Section 84 of the Federal Student Right-to-Know Act, and are available to all students. They are also the primary sources for the daily Crime Report carried in The Daily Pennsylvanian. Earlier this week, University President Judith Rodin said the new policy would be "an effort to make the data consistent with our jurisdictional areas. She added that the new policy is "an attempt to clarify and not to obfuscate." The memo had ordered officers no longer to "enter incidents that are beyond our patrol area and control," since reports of such incidents "only serve to raise the already high anxieties of this community." Although the memo had specifically mentioned DP coverage of a recent robbery at 46th and Larchwood, Seamon insists that the policy change had been long overdue. "This has been a concern to me since the first day I got here," he said. "This policy wasn't in reaction to that incident. "We just don't think that enough of a distinction has been made as to how much crime actually occurs in our area, and how much is out of our control," he explained. Seamon said he expects a final decision on the future of the log books to be reached next week. "Either way, the crimes are still going to be recorded, and they'll still be made available," he said. "They'll just be a clearer distinction made." But not everyone was convinced that this was the right way to proceed. "What about people who live outside of University Police jurisdiction?" questioned a source within the department, who wished to remain anonymous. "Shouldn't they be able to know what's going on around them -- especially if we know?" The source added that the rationale behind the original distinction was fundamentally flawed. "We should be telling it like it is," the source said. "If crime is up, that's the reality and we'll have to deal with it."