They give you parking tickets. They pull you over. Sometimes they crash your party. But they also keep you safe. Meet the University Police Department, the hub of crime prevention at the University. With only 60 officers in the department, many students have little or no contact with the police, save a little white piece of paper underneath their windshields when they park in restricted areas.
The University Police are certainly in the business of enforcing the law, but most students do not realize that their primary objective is to prevent crime from occurring in the first place and to protect the students they serve.
Several programs and organizations aid the University Police in providing eyes and ears in the University community. "The UPD desires a strong relationship with students and making our community safer," said forth-year College student Ronnie Mayhew, an intern at the Police Department and Chief of Student Watch, a student-run safety group at the University.
Student Watch is one of the organizations that aids police in crime prevention. It consists of student volunteers who patrol Grounds at least once a week on a two-hour beat, reporting all suspicious activities, looking for hazardous areas and sometimes even escorting students home on foot.
"In order to be successful we need many student volunteers and are continually in a stage of recruitment," Mayhew said. "I see Student Watch as an organization that really takes to heart student self-governance in an aspect so close to all of us -- safety and security."
Party Patrol, a more familiar program at the University, is a system sponsored by the Inter-Fraternity Council to curb underage drinking at fraternity parties by forwarding any suspicious activity through judiciary charges with the IFC. Police Sgt. Melissa Fielding, assistant director of training for police and security, called it "an administrative system of accountability" conducted by University students.
Another student organization, the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education, recently received a $6,985 grant from the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to establish a campus-community coalition to address the effects of off-Grounds drinking.
"We're excited about the grant," CASE Director Susan Bruce said. "We're focusing on strengthening U.Va.-[Charlottesville] community relationships."
After forming a coalition in November 2002 comprised of U.Va. and Charlottesville organizations, CASE applied for the grant in December and was awarded the money January 2, 2003. University Police, Student Council and the IFC are among the many groups included in this coalition, which will continue to meet monthly.
Crime prevention at the University is not limited to the police, or even to a combination of community and student groups that work with them.
"Basically what we ask the community to do is be alert, be aware. We ask them to report things that look unordinary," Fielding said. "If we didn't individually take some responsibility we could be subjecting students to be victims of a crime."
Most University students have seen e-mails suggesting ways to prevent crime, but it is easy to neglect potential dangers by, for instance, taking shortcuts through the dark, or by walking ten minutes home at one a.m. by oneself rather than waiting for the Escort service.
"That's human nature," says Officer Fielding"We often get preoccupied with what's happening next" and forget about how we're keeping ourselves safe in the meantime, she said. "Crime can occur anywhere at any time."
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