While Portland is wrangling with issues of police accountability, the university in the center of the city is dealing with police issues of its own. Portland State University has 29,703 students and only 17 security officers. This week, campus Director of Public Safety Phil Zerzan met with students to propose a big new idea: Forming a sworn police force just for PSU.
Like Portland police, the sworn officers would be armed—an issue which makes many students nervous. PSU is unique among its 21 peer urban universities in not having its own police force, using campus security to respond to most incidents and contracting with the Portland Police Bureau to deal with serious crimes. The current draft of the plan would change the university’s security team from the current 17 security officers to 10 non-sworn officers, 16 sworn police officers, and three sergeants. The cost of the proposal is unknown.
The big issue pushing the change, says Zerzan, is the problems with how PSU responds to sexual assaults. Reported sexual assaults on campus have jumped in the past three years from two in 2009 to eight nine in 2011. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since an increase in reports could mean victims now feel more comfortable and encouraged to report assaults. But, Zerzan told students last night, not having sworn police officers on campus makes the process worse for students who do report assaults. Campus security are not legally authorized to investigate sexual assaults, so they have to call the Portland police. If it’s not a crime in progress, the call gets a low priority—Zerzan says he’s seen victims wait two to three hours for an officer to come take their statement and get the investigation rolling.
“To me, it’s an embarassment that in 2012 we’re conducting sexual assault investigations in this manner,” says Zerzan. “This was the first thing that jumped out at me when I took this job, it was like a time machine stepping back into the seventies.”
“I have people coming into my office every day saying they feel unsafe,” said Dean of Student Life Michele Toppe, noting that the campus’s permeable boundaries and location in downtown can make it a target for people looking to rip off or hurt students. “I’ve waited a really long time for police to show up when I needed them.” Campus security can make arrests and search people with probable cause, but they cannot place people in mental health holds, write search warrants, or enter rooms that aren’t university owned.
If the administration goes for the plan—which is not yet a hard and fast proposal—the school could set its own oversight, use of force policies, and advanced training procedures for its police team. Though students are worried about officers carrying weapons, Zerzan noted that the university-specific officers involved in UC Davis’s Occupy pepper spraying were fired. “Ask yourself if you’d have the same response from the municipal authority that we currently contract with to provide safety,” Zerzan told students last night.
PSU students have a mixed opinion on the idea. Many are worried about how the specifics of how police oversight and training will actually pan out. During discussion of student oversight of the police, one student piped up, “Get it in writing.” Others noted that adding cops to campus won’t end rape. Instead of spending money on beefing up the police force, the school could spend money on expanding prevention programs, escorts for students, and trainings about consent.
“The big problem is not lack of police officers, but rape culture. What we need to support is making women feel safe,” said Sarah Levy, a member of PSU’s international socialist organization. “We shouldn’t assume policing is the answer.”
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2009/09/03/new…
Adding cops just adds to the chance of a Magana on campus… The last thing college kids need are a bunch of trigger happy cops who will go to the mat to protect their own even if they are rapists.
Unless they’re all female cops.
I don’t know that sworn police officers are any likelier than campus security persons to be “a Magaña”
As a scholar with a PhD stringing together too many jobs, maybe the university could hire me. I’d finally get a consistent job at a university with bennies, they could brag about having more PhDs, there would be no “trigger-happy cops,” and it would probably look good on my CV so long as I left out the fact I was a glorified hall monitor.
PSU is horribly run already and having them try to operate an armed police force is f***ing insane.
Siiigh, when will people learn?
The answer to this issue is NOT more cops nor a PSU private police force. Women need to ARM themselves! Watch out for each other. Male companions should do the same. Call out (and handle) douchebags who rape or get too close to rape.
All these would be just a start, more can be done, i’m sure.
And i’m not playing either, i’m DEAD SERIOUS! If citizens keep forfeiting their security over to authoritarians in order to have safety, what you will end up with is LESS security, LESS safety, and MORE authority! History shows us this, repeatedly. WAKE UP, DUMMIES!
Oh wow, Dumbosa is DEAD SERIOUS now.
Will women packing heat end victim-blaming and cut through bureaucratic delays? does PSU even allow students to have weapons on campus currently? should lesser instances of assault be met with deadly force? how should I respond the next time DamosA or his friend mosh onto my toes at a metal show?
mind you, I’m not advocating for armed cops either, it certainly wouldn’t solve acquaintance rape….but campus coverups are more what I’m used to, and I don’t think times have changed that much.
I do know some thing has to be done, a good friend of mine was assaulted last year along with many other women over the last few years. If there are that many reported cases how many do you think go unreported?
PSU does not allow firearms on campus. Lots of students break this policy, including the student who prevented a mass murder last year, when a knife wielding man broke into their dorm/apartment at 3am with a knife and said, “I’m going to kill you all!” One rack of a 870 was enough to send the would-be murderer running. I know a few students and teachers that carry on a daily basis.
I totally favor EXPANDING firearms rights and promoting the concept of armed students. Arming every student who is interested in being armed at PSU isn’t going to deter a lot of violence (because it will be at most 2% of college students), but propagating the idea that most students are armed will deter a lot of violence.
If the ISO spent 10% of their posters saying, “WARNING RAPISTS: Our girls are armed.” That would scare the shit out of assholes.
Give the college girls tasers, give one to every girl that asks for one. We already give them to the cops: who’s worse? A taser has to be registered before it can be activated, and shots of tasers leave hundreds of micro ID tags on the victim. We would never have abuse of the tasers because of accountability, and crime would drop significantly.
Ha! Anyways, my idea isn’t going to float, PSU inevitably will have more security in the future. I think this is less about helping victims of sexual assault, and more about having resources for the cops to harass students about drugs.
What is the break down of assaults into acquaintance and non-acquaintance? Weapons are not likely to have any impact at all on the number of acquaintance assaults and will likely have a significant impact on the latter.
As far as adding police and controlling them. PSU could arm its proposed cops and have a policy that says they cannot use the guns for any reason at all, ever. If one did use a gun, they could be fired, but would still be held to the Graham standard (fear of serious injury) for prosecution purposes.
“The big problem is not lack of police officers, but rape culture. What we need to support is making women feel safe,” said Sarah Levy, a member of PSU’s international socialist organization. “We shouldn’t assume policing is the answer.”
This. This. This. This. and again: THIS
@happyhedonist – do you have a proposal to address rape culture in our society? Having sat through countless hours of people droning on about what a horrible rapist I am by design (i.e. white male), I have yet to hear a tangible proposition to address this practically. In all honesty, I’m curious what can be done.