The handful of security officers regularly circling the University of Idaho campus have changed their shirts and the dynamic of campus security since arriving in Moscow in 2010.
Steven Devine | Argonaut
Campus security patrols campus Thursday near the Idaho Commons. Before 2010 the University of Idaho relied on the Moscow Police Department to patrol the campus, but a deal with AlliedBarton allowed for additional security in order to help keep the students and the campus community safe.
Instead of sticking out like a sore thumb in highlighter green, the employees of private security company AlliedBarton now wear Vandal gold, a symbol of their integration into the campus community.
“It took them a year or so to get acquainted with campus, get acquainted with our needs and build relationships, principally with Moscow PD but also with other stakeholders on campus,” Dean of Students Bruce Pitman said. “I think that the relationship has become positive and useful.”
When AlliedBarton was brought in three years ago to supplement the security efforts of the Moscow Police Department, Pitman said many in the community wondered if unarmed security personnel with no law enforcement powers were necessary.
Prior to Oct. 1, 2010, MPD had been the primary security force on campus since 1966, but a new $1.3 million contract created an MPD-AlliedBarton security hybrid.
For $937,715 a year, MPD continues to investigate criminal activity, dedicate specific “campus” officers and maintain its office in the Idaho Commons. AlliedBarton’s $385,291-annual contract focuses on a 24/7 presence to deter crime and property damage through patrols of the 300 acres and 250 buildings at UI.
While the largest private American-owned security firm provides security to campuses nationwide, including Stanford, Yale and the University of Chicago, UI acclimated slowly to the folks in fluorescent shirts. However, by identifying themselves as “campus security” and not AlliedBarton, reaching out to community members and responding to university instruction, they’re now a campus fixture.
“Our relationship with them has matured in a positive way,” Pitman said. “AlliedBarton provides another important layer of safety, another layer of information we might not otherwise have.”
Allied Barton’s role
For UI Executive Director of Public Safety and Security Matt Dorschel, who acts as the primary liaison between Allied Barton and UI, campus security is more a wagging finger than Billy club.
“We don’t want them to be enforcers of policy. Their goal is to make a safe, secure campus,” he said. “I get a lot of positive feedback.”
MPD continues to handle criminal activities and roughly the same number of calls, but the perception of an increased presence has made campus more secure, Lieutenant Dave Lehmitz, who oversees the campus division of MPD, said.
“We still deal with the same things as before,” he said. “The biggest thing that’s changed is more eyes out there.”
The visible deterrence of yellow shirts roaming campus has helped curtail graffiti and other activities that damage property like slack-lining on university trees.
“Campus is really clean just thanks to their presence,” Patrice McDaniel, assistant director of emergency management and security services, said.
Depending on the day, anywhere from one to five full-time or part-time AlliedBarton employees are walking campus — most UI alums — acting as a buffer between students and MPD.
“They act as a conduit between students and the Moscow Police Department — to avoid police involvement … for things that don’t require police attention,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel and Dorschel have both noticed an effect especially in the Greek community.
“We recognize that Greek row is (problematic),” he said. “At first there was a lot of distrust, they didn’t want (security) anywhere near their houses.”
Campus security networked with the Greeks through in-house presentations to destigmatize their presence and help reduce open-container violations and minor-in-possession tickets on Greek row.
Dorschel emphasizes AlliedBarton officers use common sense instead of strict policy enforcement to help deter questionable activities.
“If you reach out in a nice way, a regular way, that’s a lot more effective,” he said.
Campus security also provides a variety of services to UI students, including help with car problems — jump starts and flat repair — and the “Safe Walk” program, something Pitman said he appreciates.
“We had worried for many years about providing some nighttime safety escort or safety walk experience,” he said. “They said ‘yeah, we’ll do that.'”
By calling Safe Walk, students and faculty can have a pair of campus security officers walk them home, no questions asked.
Extra services and the extra effort from campus security officers have made campus more secure, Dorschel said.
“The thing that I’m most satisfied with is the leadership in place,” he said. “It’s really changed campus for the better.”
The Idaho hybrids
Outside of Idaho, college students usually deal with a campus police force. Idaho is different.
“It was determined that state law didn’t give universities the ability to contract their own police force,” Dorschel said.
This interpretation of the state statute makes it difficult to compare Idaho institutions with those in other states, but even within the state, each university’s approach is unique to its circumstances.
Instead of the hybrid approach for the 11,464 students in Moscow, Steve Chatterton, the director of public safety at Idaho State University, utilizes the school’s law enforcement program to provide a steady stream of trained security officers to protect the 11,574 students on its Pocatello campus.
“We have a close working relationship with the Pocatello Police,” he said.
Despite the lack of a contract, the two share a common database.
The security forces at ISU are university employees, many working toward a career in law enforcement. While they are not sworn, firearm-carrying officers, public safety officers can make citizen’s arrests and detain suspects.
Tucked away in farm country, Chatterton said Pocatello avoids “metropolitan” influence and the increased criminal activity of big cities.
“We’ve been really lucky here, we are away from that kind of thing,” Chatterton said. “But we’re not immune … We’re growing and things are always changing.”
It is a different situation for Boise State University Executive Director of Campus Security and Police Services John Uda.
“We’re totally surrounded by the city of Boise,” Uda said. “We all try to do the right thing, in our case it’s working with Boise police.”
At least one of the seven full-time Boise Police Department officers is always on campus patrolling and they respond in much the same way Moscow police. But unlike MPD, the BPD officers make rounds in the residence halls and provide security escorts on campus, streamlining some of the communication.
“Everybody responding is from one agency, that’s a positive,” Uda said.
The numbers
The Clery Act requires institutions nation-wide to track criminal activity on their campuses, statistics everyone involved in UI security are well aware of.
Violent crimes, arrests and referrals for disciplinary action are all tracked, and failure to report any incident costs the violating university $35,000.
Discerning the effect of AlliedBarton’s arrival on campus though, like finding any pattern in the Clery Act statistics, is murky territory.
“It’s hard to use the data,” he said.
He said taking credit for certain statistics is a shaky assumption.
Comparing UI to other institutions in Idaho or across the country is difficult, Dorschel said, because of the unique situations at each campus. A school’s population, location and demographics — private versus public, affluent versus poor — are all factors. High crime rates could represent more law enforcement than a dangerous campus, as numbers fluctuate as security forces crack down on specific problems. Some years are just worse than others, making trends especially difficult to spot when there may be only one or two incidents of a particular crime like arson per year. Plus, a report is only a report, not a conviction.
“I think we have a pretty safe campus, especially when we are talking about violent crime,” Dorschel said, and the 2009-2011 numbers support his claim.
According to the Department of Education database, UI was on par with the 133 other four-year institutions with student populations between 10,000 and 14,999. From 2009-2011, 13 sexually based offenses were reported at UI compared to a 7.7 average at comparable institutions. UI had 44 burglaries in those three years, four more than the national average, but UI is no different than other schools when it comes to robbery, arson, motor vehicle theft and aggravated assault.
Other universities in Idaho fit generally into the same trend of safety. In the same three-year period, Idaho State University had seven sex offenses and Boise State despite its larger population — 17,600 on the Boise campus in 2011 — had nine. ISU and BSU were near or below national averages in the other violent crime categories.
Colleges being famous havens for partying, the largest number violations at any institution involve alcohol.
UI’s 331 and ISU’s 162 referrals for campus disciplinary action for liquor law violations — MIP/MIC tickets, etc. — are lower than the national average of 563 referrals at similar institutions from 2009-2011. BSU’s 835 is more difficult to assess considering the nearly 6,000 more students in Boise in 2011 than were in Moscow or Pocatello, but BSU’s 2011 rate of referral for liquor law violations per 100 students was 4.7 compared to UI’s 2.9 and ISU’s 1.4.
Arrests for liquor law violations are a completely different story. In 2011, UI had 155 arrests versus only 64 at ISU and 41 at BSU, with the national average at 110 arrests for schools with 10,000-14,999 students.
A secure future
Herein lies the problem for assessing AlliedBarton’s influence since arriving on campus in 2010. The total number of sex offenses reported in 2011, 6 forcible, was the same as in 2010, 3 forcible and 3 non-forcible. There were 85 more liquor law referrals, but 10 less arrests in 2011.
The numbers can only tell part of the story, and with the AlliedBarton’s contract expiring on June 30, 2014, UI officials will have to come up with a way to evaluate campus security’s performance.
This does not mean security will remain stagnant until then.
“Our work around safety issues is becoming more sophisticated every month,” Pitman said. “We’re devoting an incredible amount of energy to making sure we are analyzing risks and responding appropriately in a timely way. Every month we get better at it.”
The university will also have to assess if what they are spending on security is worth it.
“The other hard decision that institutions have to make is how much resource are you putting into it relative to the risk,” Pitman, said.
The two task forces formed this semester examining how university addresses substance abuse and its interactions with its Greek community will play their own part in shaping security at UI, but it’s an inexact science.
“Not every situation is going to be resolved happily. You can do your work perfectly and it can still have a bad outcome,” Pitman, who is leading both task forces, said. “This is all about tilting the odds in your favor as much as you can tilt them.”
Dylan Brown can be reached at [email protected]