EDITORIAL: A uniform effort against crime

Proposed arrest protocols would increase the Division of Public Safety's effectiveness. Limited distinctions between what Philadelphia Police should handle and what University Police are better suited to take care of has made tracking crimes difficult. Keeping accurate statistics on crimes not handled by Penn Police was impossible because of the city's sporadic record-keeping habits (Philadelphia had to rescind its crime stats for 1997 after several faults were found). And frequently, suspects got off simply because students couldn't be bothered to go down to 18th District headquarters at 55th and Pine streets to press charges. But, if put into effect, a proposed set of new arrest protocols should, for the first time, enable a centralized effort toward reducing crime in the area. The protocols would make University Police solely responsible for handling crimes on campus and those within their patrol area -- from Market Street to Baltimore Avenue and the Schuylkill River to 43rd Street -- involving members of the University community. In effect, this would allow the University Police force to tailor its efforts toward those crimes which are of particular priority to University students, faculty and staff. Trends such as bike thefts -- which were previously overshadowed in the eyes of Philadelphia Police by more violent crime -- could be watched more closely, allowing for more individual incidents to be solved. Crime stats should also be kept more meticulously under a single department. And members of the University community would only have to go as far as Public Safety headquarters at 40th and Chestnut streets to follow up on a crime, decreasing the chance that pattern criminals would walk free. Additionally, with University Police taking on more of local crime would alleviate, to an admittedly slight degree, the desperately overburdened Philadelphia Police Department. These proposed protocols are yet another instance of how, under Vice President for Public Safety Tom Seamon's leadership, the Division of Public Safety has been moving toward becoming a vanguard among university police departments. It is particularly difficult to define a private police force within an urban setting, and it's something Public Safety and Philadelphia police have been struggling with for some time. But in recent years, Penn Police seem more and more to be finding their niche within the broader context of Philadelphia.