University of Virginia Library

Campus Cop-Out

Recently we analyzed in a four-part series
the final recommendations and findings of the
extensive survey of the University's
Department of Security done by the
International Association of Chiefs of Police
(IACP); we should now like to evaluate it.

Expansion of this University has
progressed at a sometimes bewildering, often
blistering, yet steadily painful rate. In short,
we have experienced a multitude of growing
pains, (i.e., insufficient University housing,
cramped classroom space, and a general
cultural and environmental 'future shock').
The IACP's investigation of the University's
Security Department has demonstrated that
at least certain segments of the University
have yet to adapt to these changes.

The old campus cop can no longer cope
with the complex and comprehensive duties
of policing a-co-educational institution of
over 12,000 students. Yet it is on this very
foundation–one of a security force with
paternalistic responsibilities to 5,000
males–that the University's Security
Department, through minor modification, has
continued to function.

We need only point to the increased
number of sexual assaults this year, combined
with the ever-increasing number of traffic
citations issued (over 27,000 in 1971 or an
average of 75 per day according to the IACP
report) to understand that the need for a
restructuring of University police priorities
has indeed reached nothing short of crisis
proportions.

Of all the conclusions drawn by the IACP
in the 400-page survey, their claim that
"University Security officers serve in a
sub-professional capacity" points out the crux
of the present dilemma. With the increase in
police patrol responsibilities, necessary to
meet the needs of a burgeoning University
population, one would expect that the non-crime-preventive
police duties assigned to
Security officers would curtail
correspondingly. Unfortunately, this has not
been the case.

As we pointed out in our analysis
'Security-officers' duties within the University
community include supervision of parking
regulations, the Newcomb Hall post office
and the intra-university mail service, traffic
engineering and sign painting, industrial safety
inspections, the location of medical charts at
the Hospital , and the routine unlocking of
University doors. The image of a Security
officer delivering mail while a co-ed near
Clark Hall is being molested, is more than
preposterous. It is nothing short of
outrageous.

The IACP report mirrors our sentiments
exactly when it observes: "Officers do not
presently have a clear understanding of their
exact role, duties, and responsibilities." The
present preoccupation of the officers' time
with the duties cited above, can easily and
obviously be singled out as the cause behind
this role-ambiguity.

We emphatically concur with the
recommendation of the report that the
Security Department be restructured into a more
professional police force, functioning "within
the University, essentially the same as a
municipal police department functions within
a city."

This recommendation, combined with the
suggestion that the officers hired in the
future meet certain age and educational
qualifications, (qualifications which would
better adapt the force to communication with
its primarily youthful population), should be
implemented in a manner that would
professionalize the "University of Virginia
Police Force," and initiate not a more severe
form of police enforcement (one that would
inevitably mean merely increased harassment)
but a more professional, crime preventive,
community conscious department.