The University Area Crime-Control Team has been extended to the end of the semester after personnel issues caused a two-week delay in implementation.

UACT, an initiative between the Syracuse University Department of Public Safety and the Syracuse Police Department, was created in October and consists of officers from both departments patrolling the East Neighborhood and Marshall Street area together, among other safety increases.

But despite the late start date, DPS Capt. John Sardino said the cooperation between the two law enforcement agencies has gone smoothly.

“The communication between all the officers working has been great and we’ve already seen some people settle into working kind of almost every week which is even better continuity than we thought,” he said.

Concerns about safety peaked among the student body this fall due to crimes such as a stabbing in the Carrier Dome during Orange Madness, several incidents on Marshall Street and a string of off-campus robberies.

The creation of UACT was, in part, a response to these concerns. The SPD and DPS officers patrol together, but in separate cars, so the initiative has resulted in an increase in the number of cars in off-campus neighborhoods and Marshall Street, said DPS Chief Tony Callisto.

Since UACT started, there has been some “tweaking” to the original plan, Callisto said. The coverage area was expanded and, because the initiative started two weeks late, it will now run through the end of the semester instead of just through the end of November, he said.

At the end of the semester, UACT will be evaluated on three criteria: whether there has been an “appreciable difference” in criminal activity, an evaluation of how the officers work together and whether the initiative is the most cost-effective way to combat crime, Callisto said.

Currently, UACT is paid for through a grant from the chancellor’s office and does not come out of the DPS budget, Callisto said. If the initiative is to continue past this semester, more funds will need to be allocated, he said.

Although the initiative is still in the early stages, Joe Cecile, SPD deputy chief, said just the police presence alone has had an effect.

“I don’t have any concrete numbers to show what impact we’re having up there,” he said. “But I can tell you that anytime you put marked vehicles, marked patrol vehicles in a neighborhood, you’re going to have some deterrent effect.”

Crime has gotten more attention in the media and the university community than in years past, but both Callisto and Sardino said crime this semester has not increased from the norm.

“In the seven years I’ve been here, this year is higher than about half of the seven years and lower than about half of the seven years,” Callisto said.

But there are some things that are different this semester. Most of the alerts DPS has sent out this semester involve off-campus crime, as DPS has been focusing more on these areas than in the past, he said.

The Clery Act, a federal statute regulating campus security policy, requires DPS to send out public safety notices when incidents occur on university property or on public properties adjacent to campus, Callisto said, but it is not required to notify students of off-campus crime.

But DPS has put out notices for crimes that have occurred as far away as Fellows Avenue, which is located on the other side of Westcott Street, because they know graduate students live in the area, Callisto said.

“We’re more likely to put out a public safety notice about an incident in the areas where students live than we ever have been,” he said.

Local media has also covered crime more this semester than in the past. Callisto estimates that he’s usually on television once or twice a semester, but this semester he’s been on television five times.

“It just seems like there’s been more attention (on crime), which, from my perspective, that’s a good thing,” he said. “I don’t want to raise alarm in the university community, but when we get the publicity that an incident occurred and here’s what we’re doing about it, it can alert people and that’s what we want to do.”

Sardino, who has been with DPS for 27 years, said he agrees that crime has been about average this semester. Students are usually unaware of crime, and if an incident isn’t picked up by a news source or sent out in an alert, he predicted that about 70 percent of robberies near campus would go unnoticed, he said.

“We’ve been really consistent this year with educating our community about what’s going on,” Sardino said. “That might be the biggest difference.”

Another big difference this semester has been increased communication between DPS and the student body, including the creation of a Student Association DPS Advisory Board.

Belen Crisp, a sophomore management major, created the advisory board with the hopes of giving students a better way to communicate with DPS. After she and PJ Alampi, chair of the Student Life Committee, met with Callisto to talk about safety concerns, she decided to bring back the advisory board, which had previously been a part of SA, she said.

The meetings have gone well so far and a number of students who haven’t been able to attend them have also been emailing their concerns to Crisp, who then relays them to DPS.

The meetings are open to all students, though Crisp said not as many students from outside SA have attended as she would like. In the future, she said, she plans on better publicizing the meetings so more people will attend.

“We’ve opened the door to have students talk about what’s on their minds because I feel like students, we’ll talk amongst ourselves about what’s bothering us, but DPS never really knows what we really think,” Crisp said.

Sardino, who has worked closely with the advisory board, said this kind of communication also benefits DPS.

DPS tries to raise awareness about crime prevention among students by holding meetings in the residence halls, but if the meetings aren’t mandatory, students do not usually attend, he said.

But initiatives such as the advisory board give DPS an opportunity to communicate through students in a way that students are more likely to listen, Sardino said.

“I think anything along those lines is good,” he said. “Whenever we can establish better or new communication with students, that’s beneficial for both us and the students.”

 

Published on November 27, 2012 at 2:03 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta