As with every year since the riots in 1998 and 2000, local and state police forces are beefing up their presence in State College and on the Penn State campus for the duration of the 40th annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

While he did not release exact numbers of officers patrolling the festival, State College Police Sgt. Mark Argiro said the presence would certainly be greater than when the Arts Festival isn't in town.

He said officers would patrol the downtown area in plain clothes and uniform.

This is the first Arts Festival where the security cameras at Beaver Canyon will be monitored live. Argiro said one of the main goals of live monitoring is to prevent crime.

As an example, Argiro said the person monitoring the cameras could spot the beginnings of a fight and send in officers to break it up before it spirals out of control.

"I believe at some point we're going to capture that on video, and we'll be able to intercept it before something occurs," Argiro said.

Argiro said the visible police presence would be most prevalent during the children's activities today to deter any incidents from occurring and to help lost children find their parents.

"Children are our most precious assets, and that's not lost on the police department," Argiro said.

Pennsylvania State Police will also be providing support for the festival, focusing on alcohol-related incidents, vehicle code violations and crowd control, state police Cpl. Joseph Leiter said.

"Any time you have more people in a concentrated area you have a higher chance of someone getting hurt," Leiter said.

He said some state troopers would be mounted on horseback.

"They're able to get to areas quicker; they're very well-trained in crowd control," Leiter said.

Argiro said incidents that usually occur in the evening during the Arts Festival, including bar fights, public drunkenness and vandalism, are comparable to the incidents that occur on most football game days.

Penn State University Police Officer Frank Ball said that, aside from providing some officers to patrol the on-campus Arts Festival areas, the student security officers would be patrolling after dark to prevent damage and theft of items in the booths.

"During the daytime a lot of our concern is that we have a lot of elderly people walking in the heat, and there are a lot of health and safety issues," Ball said. He said university police are not upping their presence in non-Arts Festival areas around campus, such as dorms and on-campus fraternities, but the department will be sending about 20 officers to AfterFest.

"Alcohol is usually involved from the people coming up downtown," Ball said of AfterFest.

In 1998 and 2000, riots erupted in Beaver Canyon, changing the way that security is handled at the Arts Festival.

"Pre-riot, it was a low-key deal," Ball said of festival security.

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said security measures have been beefed up since the riots.

"We've had a couple of negative incidents that have occurred during the Arts Festival that have made us rethink the way we collaborate security during the Arts Festival," Kendig said.