Big Brother is watching you, but at The University of Memphis, it’s a good thing.
The campus police and Parking Services are working together to decrease crime to and from cars, which made up 29 percent of the crimes on campus in 2000, by generally making their presence stronger and more noticeable to potential thieves and vandals.
There are plans to change the tinted glass to transparent glass in the two observation towers in the Central parking lot and the one in the Southern lot. The idea is for students and thieves to know when someone is watching to deter theft and to give students a feeling of security. The towers will be manned 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“Even when — with a clear window — you can see that there is no one watching, it’s good that students won’t have the presumption that they are staffed when they are not,” said interim Public Safety Director Bruce Harber. “And (it will) help dispel the misconception that the towers aren’t staffed at all.”
The staffing of the towers is done through StaffMart, a local temp agency, and is paid for by student parking fees. The employees manning the tower watch for behavior deserving of tickets, radio the parking office to give out tickets when necessary and use binoculars to watch for crime or suspicious activity.
There are actions being taken to make the campus as safe as possible. Through efforts and education, theft of personal property on campus is down, so the hope is that a combination of several methods will also reduce theft of cars, thefts from cars and vandalism, which are a constant problem at The University.
In 2000, there were 148 reported thefts involving vehicles, and there have been 12 arrests at The University since January of 2000. Many more perpetrators may have been caught by the city police since then, since all information regarding major crimes at The University is turned over to the city police, who often end up catching the criminals.
A new initiative taken by campus police is to reduce car theft and vandalism through use of technology. Using the campus website, students who witness crime or want to confess to crimes can go online and report information anonymously. So far, one criminal has used the website to confess.
“You never know what you can prevent,” said Harber. Almost all of the car theft, car burglary and vandalism done on campus is done by people from the outside coming onto the campus, not students, but any communications between the students and police will help reduce crime. The website can be accessed at http://bf.memphis.edu/police/incident.htm.
.memphis.edu/police/forms.html or through The University website.
In addition, the campus police department is fully staffed, with five officers and one lieutenant constantly on duty during two 12 hour shifts per day. They also have two new patrol cars and a new golf cart for Tiger Patrol that will be out from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The lighting in the parking lots around campus is also being evaluated. An informal lighting survey has already be done by the campus police, fixing dark areas around construction areas replacing bulbs and other minor repairs. A major lighting survey will take place in October to look into where more extensive and widespread lighting changes are needed. Lighting is a very expensive project, though — it cost $200,000 to better light the area around the Panhellenic building, and maintenance costs have doubled since their installation, with a 20 to 30 percent increase per year in energy costs.
Also, the gating and fencing around parking lots has been shown to deter theft and vandalism. “Gated areas add another layer of protection, so as a result we do see that those are targeted less frequently,” said Harber.
Many people are not aware that in addition to the 19 emergency phones marked by blue lights, the phones at the gates switch to campus police dispatch after 6 p.m. So if students see a car theft or vandalism in progress, they are urged to use those phones to report a crime. If the crime happens to be taking place in the Southern or Central lots, the person manning the tower will be radioed with the information and will be able to watch the suspect until campus police arrive on the scene. Emergency phones are checked once a week to be sure they are in functioning order.
As always, campus police works closely with Memphis Police Department to assist in the patrolling of the campus perimeter area. Campus police say they hope for more gating, fencing and lighting in the future, to help further reduce car-related theft on campus.
