If you pay taxes, whether they're local, state or federal, you expect to get something in return. One obvious service area which your tax dollars are expected to show is in security. We pay a few thousand dollars per year in taxes and expect our police, firemen (and women) and military to protect us. Now, what if we paid over $30,000 per year in taxes? You would expect that amount to easily, and fully, cover any security expenses to keep you as safe as can be, right? Well, not so much at University Park.
Paying upwards of $28,000 a year should afford students a feeling of safety in their own dorm rooms. However, recent events have shown that this is not the case.
Two of the most prolific events of this nature took place last week.
An intruder entered two dorm rooms on campus, threatening the occupants of both and stealing money from one. There was also the case of someone spray painting phallic images all over the floors and elevators of Beaver Hall.
Penn State has shown some effort to combat this issue by posting more auxiliary and campus police units to patrol campus. Is this enough? I must disagree.
Penn State employs these police units to patrol campus, yet they did nothing to deter the events that occurred last week. Dorm rooms were still broken into, and an entire dorm building was vandalized by graffiti.
In the last week, we've seen what this region would call a "crime wave" hit University Park. One cannot simply blame this on the fact that Arts Fest recently ended. The first events took place days before the vendors began to set up.
The State College police department has 62 full-time sworn officers, according to the department Web site, www.statecollegepa.us. According to University Park police Web site www.psu.edu/dept/police, the department currently employs 46 full-time armed police officers, and about 200 students as auxiliary officers and escorts.
That's 246 paid security personnel for University Park, compared to State College's 62 officers.
Penn State employs more security personnel than the State College Police Department, and both departments are responsible for areas of equal size and population. Yet, Penn State's use of their allotted security personnel seems much less efficient than the State College police.
I'm not trying to endorse the State College Police Department, nor am I trying to bash the University Park police department. Rather, I am questioning the university's decision-making on crime prevention at University Park.
In 2001, there were riots in downtown State College during The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, and following these events, so the borough installed cameras in strategic areas downtown as well as extra streetlights. This is an example of State College Police taking a proactive approach to crime prevention.
Penn State has installed cameras in dorms at the commonwealth campuses, following State College's lead. They just forgot about University Park.
Why haven't we seen this sort of measure taken at main campus?
With over 30,000 undergraduate students living in and around University Park, Penn State should consider the safety of the students before anything else. Even with the increased security for Arts Fest, the crime rate on campus seems to have soared. Worse yet, many of these crimes were committed within, or adjacent to, dorms like Beaver Hall, one of the few dorms used in the summer semesters. If I was a freshman up here for summer session, these recent events would really have me questioning my safety at University Park.
I would like to know why students at University Park aren't treated with the same amount of care as students at the commonwealth campuses.
Penn State needs to take the initiative to protect its students. At University Park, cameras need to be installed on campus and more on campus lighting should be installed as well. Hopefully measures like this would better assist Penn State in keeping their students safe.
