UB Cites Community Policing For Drop In Campus Crime

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo officials say community policing contributed to an overall drop in crime on the North and South campuses in 1997.

Campus crime statistics for 1997, released last week by Dennis Black, UB interim vice president for student affairs, show that the incidence of campus crime dropped from 1996 levels in almost all major categories. Only larceny increased, while arson remained the same at one case.

Some categories, including burglary, assault and criminal mischief, showed a decline over two years.

"We have a very safe campus, and the community helps make it safe," says John Grela, UB director of public safety.

Black agrees.

"I'm pleased to see the (downward) trend in the numbers, but the important part is not how we look on paper, but how people feel," Black says. "I hope everybody has a sense of security, that UB is a place where they can concentrate on studying, learning and working."

UB also fares well when compared to its peers in the Association of American Universities, and with the SUNY centers at Albany and Stony Brook, Grela says, with UB ranking "well below the average" in the eight major categories of crime for 1996.

Moreover, customer satisfaction with Public Safety is high, according to a 1996 survey of those who filed complaints with the department, with more than 62 percent rating officers as "excellent" and nearly 30 percent rating them as "good." No one rated officers as "poor."

Grela attributes the overall drop in crime at UB to community-policing efforts, noting that Public Safety began implementing the concept in 1989, and "we're finally reaping those benefits now." He points out that while the conventional wisdom says it takes "a whole generation" of a police department -- usually 14-18 years -- for the community-policing concept to become widely accepted and effective, "we're ahead of that curve in what we're doing."

Grela praises the university community for embracing community policing, a concept that he describes as taking a "problem-solving approach" to crime.

"The idea is to get the officer on the street who is responsible for an area to take ownership of the area and become its own police department," he said. Officers are encouraged to use an "analytical process" to identify problems and understand what is causing them, as well as the underlying conditions contributing to the problems, and then develop a wide range of alternative strategies to address those problems, in addition to the tools of arrest and prosecution, he adds.

Public-safety officers work in the residence halls and with individual university departments and units to form partnerships and solve problems, he said.

The concept is working.

"People are reporting crime in a more timely fashion; they're getting the community-policing message to 'Call if they see suspicious persons,'" Grela says.

This is evidenced by an increase in the number of complaints received by Public Safety over the past five years, Grela says, noting that complaints have increased from 10,732 in 1992 to 14,216 in 1997. Arrests also are up, he said, from 85 in 1994 to 152 last year.

The decline in burglaries on both campuses -- from 220 in 1995 to 186 in 1996 to 158 in 1997 -- can be attributed to several factors, he says.

In addition to community policing, students are learning not to circumvent the automatic outside-door-locking system in the residence halls. And most of the habitual criminals responsible for burglaries on campus -- one proficient thief wandering around campus can be responsible for 20-30 burglaries, he notes -- are now in jail.

The increase in larcenies, Grela said, may be related to unattended bookbags and handbags, often containing wallets. Theft of a credit card is defined as a grand larceny.