COLUMN: Is Penn a safer place to live?

From Eric Goldstein's, "Upon Further Review," Fall '97 From Eric Goldstein's, "Upon Further Review," Fall '97Perhaps no one was happier to see winter break roll around last semester than University President Judith Rodin. What the nation learned last year was a fact many students had been grumbling about for years: West Philly is just not safe. Let's review the facts. On September 25, a student was shot just a few dozen yards from Superblock. On Halloween night, a University Medical Center researcher was stabbed to death a few blocks off campus. On November 18, a student was carjacked on the 3900 block of Baltimore Avenue, a haven of off-campus living. Dozens of other students fell victim to muggers both on and off campus, and numerous local merchants were targeted by robbers. The fallout from the crime wave was severe. The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times and numerous other news publications reported on the topic, bringing the University's troubles to the attention of applicants, parents and alumni. Many students expressed outrage with the University's reaction, criticizing the administration for waiting until a student was shot and a researcher was killed before acting. Rodin was vilified for failing to show at a student rally the day after the shooting; many claimed she was out of touch with students' fears and was hiding behind the iron gates of Eisenlohr Hall. Student reaction was so great that the University Police had to open a special post-shooting hotline and the Vice Provost for University Life's e-mail account crashed due to the high volume of messages. Following the shooting, though, Rodin did announce eight initiatives to improve safety on and around Penn's campus. The new plan included the hiring of 10 new police officers, increased patrolling, the creation of a special team of veteran officers to combat late-night crime and the deployment of security guards to man the streets west of campus after dark. And indications are that the plan is working. During the period from November 1996 through January 1997 -- the three-month period immediately following Rodin's anti-crime initiatives -- major crimes experienced a 50 percent decrease from the same period the year before. While fear and perhaps panic overtook the University community last semester, the results of a recent DP poll suggest that students now feel safe on campus -- a tribute to the administration's response. The survey found more than 60 percent of those polled feel either "somewhat safe" or "very safe." About 40 percent of the students said they feel "more safe" or "much more safe" now than they did last September. And nearly 75 percent of those surveyed believe the Spectaguard security guards who patrol campus have done a "good," "very good" or "excellent" job improving campus safety. The bottom line is the University's plan appears to have both lowered instances of major crime and made students feel safer. The only criticism is Rodin and administrators acted too late, waiting until a student was shot to address the old issue of campus safety. However, there is obviously some work left to be done. More than half of those students polled said they do not feel safe walking alone west of 40th Street at night. And nearly 80 percent of the students believe University efforts should be concentrating its security efforts on off-campus residences as opposed to on-campus residences. It is not reasonable, of course, to ask for a crime-free West Philadelphia. To expect Rodin to solve a problem that America's mayors and legislators have failed to fix would be naive. But the solution to off-campus crime is not to pull students back on campus, which appears to be the University's primary tactic. The administration's new plan on reorganizing on-campus residences states a goal of keeping 10 percent more undergraduates on campus. Students have already made it clear through their actions that they are not going to move back on campus to avoid crime. They may be more likely to move out of University City altogether. Graduate students have been flocking to Center City in droves in the 1990s. In 1988-89, 60 percent of grad students called West Philly home; that number was only 25 percent as of last spring, according to the Office of Off-Campus Living. In 2007, will undergraduates be migrating over the Schuylkill River too? For many upperclassmen, on-campus living is never a serious option after freshman or sophomore year. That is not likely to change no matter what the University does to improve the dormitories and on-campus facilities. If off-campus rowhouses and apartments are deemed unsafe, undergraduates may begin following the example of grad students. Students have always been quicker to react to the problem of crime than administrators. Penn Watch, a neighborhood watch program, was a student-created program. The Spectaguard patrols, in many ways, appear to have been modeled after the student-run program. Following the shootings, the InterFraternity Council was among the first to come up with an anti-crime plan -- announcing the creation of a Safe Houses system, whereby fraternity houses would open their doors to students in need of help. Slowly but surely, the administration has followed students' lead. Perhaps the best example of this commitment to off-campus safety was the University's "March Blitz" offer to local landlords to encourage them to cooperate with the UC Brite plan to improve lighting in University City. The "March Blitz" was an offer on the part of the University to share the costs of putting in new and better lights west of 40th Street. This came five months after an initial analysis of off-campus lighting. The "March Blitz," though, came 1 1/2 years after the Panhellenic Council had asked the University for help in improving the lighting situation near off-campus sorority houses. Although the University has acted slowly, it has demonstrated its ability to help solve the problem of crime on campus. Now that focus needs to be concentrated on off-campus residences. Rodin survived last semester's storm. But if there is a lesson to be learned, it is that it is better to act early and prevent crime than to react late after someone has already been hurt or killed.