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Chief says more officers needed

By James Kruger
kruger1@mscd.edu

With safety a grave concern on college campuses, Auraria police fail to have an adequate number of officers to effectively protect and serve its jurisdiction, according to department officials.

The force’s current number does not meet the number for state averages, national averages or even departmental recommendations.

There should be one officer for every 1,000 people on campus, according to Deputy Chief of Police John Egan — a goal he feels is reasonable as every other major campus in Colorado exceeds that ratio.

Auraria, which houses Metro, UCD and CCD, has 19 officers patrolling a campus with an estimated 43,000 people — making the force 24 officers shy, according to Egan and Police Chief John Mackey.

“It’s basic math. In police work it’s population,” Mackey said. “The standard would be at least 40 cops.”

The University of Colorado at Boulder has 42 officers for its 40,000 people, and the University of Denver has 31 officers for 17,000 people.

The national average at four year institutions is three officers per 1,000, according to a 2004 report from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Auraria’s deficiency, in light of shooting tragedies at Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University, has Mackey looking for ways to increase the force.

Mackey, appointed chief in October, requested a team of specialists to examine the Auraria police in January to find ways it could improve.

Based on that critique, he approached the presidents of the campus’s three schools with concerns about officer numbers.

“For me, that was the No. 1 issue,” he said, referring to the fact the team took issue with the number of officers needed to effectively patrol the campus.

While school leaders were receptive, Mackey said he and other police recognize that a lack of funding plays a huge role in getting more officers, and funds are not increasing.

Egan said the department’s resources dwindle each year.

“The schools have better uses for their money as far as they’re concerned,” he said. “Every year our budget gets cut.”

Sandra Sales, chief finance officer of Auraria, disagreed with that viewpoint, saying funding is a problem for all aspects of higher education and the budget for police is up $900,000 from the 2003-2004 year, now totaling $2.6 million, although much of those resources were used for equipment rather than officers.

Sales said the state’s recession four years ago caused major cuts to higher education and reduced its appropriations to colleges and universities.

Auraria tried not to let that affect the police budget.

The state allocates money to each college based on enrollment. With that money and other funds, such as tuition and parking fees, the schools jointly fund campus police. This provides financing for 22 officer slots, three of which are currently vacant.

Sales said she recognizes the importance of campus safety and commends the department for keeping crime low with the resources available.

But she also questioned the effect more officers would have in preventing the recent tragedies at other campuses.

“I think if we came back to the table and said we need five more officers we’d have to cut something else,” she said.

“You could have an officer at every building and it’s not going to stop someone that’s determined.”

However, adding officers now, Mackey said, is better than adding them after the fact.

“We don’t want the major crime — we don’t want the problems to be the catalyst for doing this,” he said. Noah Fritz, Metro criminal justice assistant professor and former president of the Association for Crime Analysts, said using ratios to determine how many officers are needed for worst-case scenarios is exorbitant.

“To have six officers driving around this campus seven days a week is a waste of resources and taxpayer money,” he said.

While he hasn’t analyzed Auraria, Fritz said that, unlike many other campuses, it does not have residence halls, which would necessitate more police to keep watch on more people on campus at night. However, he also said other factors, such as the homeless element and RTD stations, create a propensity for crime.

Yet crime doesn’t seem to be a major issue at Auraria. Despite the lack of officers, it is one of the safest in the country, Egan said.

Reports of burglaries, the primary source of crime at most colleges, numbered 44 at Auraria in 2006, whereas 95 were reported at CU-Boulder the same year, based on police documents.

And in spite of the tragedies making headlines, students feel safe at Auraria.

“I don’t really have a reason for it, I just feel safe,” said Julie Sare, a Metro sophomore and music education major. “I think seeing more police on campus creates a more fearful feeling in people.”

One has little opportunity to see an officer at Auraria because there are so few. At times, there are only two officers on duty to patrol the 127-acre campus.

When only two officers are on campus, it is difficult to patrol effectively, Egan said, and it’s necessary for Auraria to meet the ratio of one officer for every 1,000 people, just as every other major Colorado campus does.

“It should be a concern to everybody,” he said, regarding the lack of officers.

In the event of a major emergency, however, the Auraria police would call on other nearby police forces, such as Denver’s police. There are also five security guards assisting Auraria officers, although the guards’ training is not as extensive and they lack the authority to make arrests.

Also, the Auraria Higher Education Board installed “blue light” stations throughout campus that allow students to press a button to notify police quickly.

These devices are examples of creative approaches Auraria implemented to increase campus safety, Sales said.

To improve the police force, meanwhile, the budget for 2009 is in development, and Sales said money will be set aside to bring Auraria police’s technology and equipment up to speed — another problem found regarding the department, Mackey said.

“We’re 20 years behind the times,” he said, in reference to its reporting system.

Auraria police still rely on a paper system, whereas most other departments implement an electronic one, allowing police to track each time an individual is stopped or questioned, rather than just for arrests.

Mackey said having access to such information is crucial to preventing and investigating crime because it creates a deeper background on suspects.

Funding issues aside, Mackey said he hopes to work toward getting the department accredited within the next year through the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, which would ensure the department is following set guidelines of professionalism and procedure. The department is not accredited now.

The accreditation, he said, would possibly help him push administration leaders harder for more officers and better equipment, as it would illustrate the department is doing its job correctly and, in fact, improving.

While more officers wouldn’t prevent every crime and catastrophe, Mackey said, a bigger force could better contain and investigate smaller incidents. And more officers mean more of a police presence.

“The bottom line,” Mackey said, “is if you have additional police on campus, you can work those minor instances on campus that, on occasion, escalate to major things.”