GUEST COLUMN: Solving the problem of campus crime

Alex Berkett says ridding University City of crime requires a community-wide effort. The recent increase in robberies around campus has given birth to a number of self-appointed "experts" on issues from criminology to race relations. This newspaper's pages have been filled with passionate pleas and rambling diatribes from students lashing out at the administration, and anyone else deemed responsible, for the outrageous acts of unprovoked violence on our streets. Such a time of crisis demands thoughtful analysis, not a seething demand for stop-gap measures filled with a pretentious aura of superiority over our neighbors. As privileged members of an elite educational institution, we should be capable of evaluating a problem, isolating its cause and working towards its solution. Unfortunately, we have not only failed to solve the problem of crime in our community, we have yet to even isolate its causes. Our energies have been directed toward assigning blame, obstinately demanding result, and making irrational threats of withholding donations and withdrawing from classes. Many who had never given an ounce of thought to problems foreign to their native suburban enclaves are suddenly proclaiming the proper course of action for public safety and community partnership. The time has come to stop insulting the professionals in these fields and evaluate their efforts. Public Safety Managing Director Tom Seamon has an impeccable record in policing and the Center for Community Partnerships and its predecessors have been sounding warnings about this inevitable crime spurt since 1985. Let us draw from their efforts and focus on improvement and refinement, rather than preaching an unfamiliar gospel. Scholars and professionals alike attribute crime, at its roots, to poverty. Public safety institutions continually trumpet the importance of a strong community in crime-prevention efforts. On a more individual level, sociologists and urban experts attest to the essential nature of mutual respect to communal living. At the same time, University students -- the very same young adults who complain miserably about the vile nature of their urban environs -- consistently contribute to the physical decay of the area. While we whine on the 11 o'clock news about the perils we "downtrodden students" encounter, residents just five blocks away have been trumpeting the same concerns for years, to no avail. We make a mockery of ourselves by demanding media attention, expecting judicial exception and trivializing the safety concerns of area residents while insisting upon impracticably heavy-handed security for ourselves. The issue at hand is urban redevelopment, not Gestapo policing. Those who demand results now need to realize that this problem has been developing for years. It will not be solved by Monday. Those who devalue community economic development and neighborhood partnership as a footnote to the solution do not understand urbanity and are a part of the problem, as are those who merely pay lip service to these concepts. Annual volunteerism and feel-good block clean-ups are not the answer. A concerted effort on the part of the University and its students to physical site improvement, educational supplementation and economic development is absolutely crucial. Investment in our neighborhood to ensure that its residents will be employed, and its youth employable, will do more for the security of this campus than any other initiative. Putting up lights, sending out students and uniformed patrols and installing blue light phones are short-term band-aids that we hope produce results. But anyone with any knowledge of the problems in urban America is aware of the gaps in this strategy. There is but a thin veil over the superior attitude we are exhibiting in our present responses to crime in our neighborhood. We must realize they only add to the problem. Eyeing minorities with suspicion, demonizing petty criminals and creating an abrasive atmosphere for area residents hurts our cause. Demanding the harassment of local vendors, the homeless and those we individually deem suspicious is impractical, not to mention unconstitutional. Accusing the administration of inattention negates the efforts of those who were addressing this issue before it merited daily dialogue in this paper. It is now necessary for the administration to recognize the difference between stop-gap (parental appeasal) methods and realistic solutions. We must applaud the push for a special services district while acknowledging that it is only part of the answer. We must open debate, not on whether or when, but on how much and in what form the University should invest in West Philadelphia. The long-term solution is the only viable solution, even for the short term. As an urban university we must deal with urbanity. The problems of urbanity are among the most pressing and complex in our nation. It is our burden to address them and our privilege as intellectuals to debate and ascertain a proper solution. Respect for the roles of our communal peers is fundamental to resolving this enigma. As educators ponder the practicality of today's university education, what better practical puzzle exists than modern urbanity? The global economy demands versatile problem solving skills. What better practical examples exist to prepare our Whartonites for the challenges of professional life? This problem is not an aside to the University. It is fundamental to its existence and its future, both academically and communally.