Incidents of alleged racial profiling last fall sparked large protests on the Main Green and the formation of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency, the latest in a series of such student groups. Josh Teitelbaum '07, a leading member of Co-PAIT, said the group's efforts have been aimed at raising awareness of "incidents of abuse of power by police, especially in cases of profiling" as well as students' awareness of their own rights.
Such allegations of abuse are not new. In 2004, a similar group, Action for Safety, was formed in response to alleged profiling of two Hispanic students by DPS. Before that, in 2002, a student was arrested because - according to the arresting officer - he "looked like a Hope High School student."
Admittedly, DPS has to tread a fine line between maintaining security and respecting students' rights. According to its mission statement, DPS aims to foster "a stable environment in which security is balanced with freedom of movement, and individual rights are balanced with community needs."
As anyone who has lived at Brown for more than a week can attest, the laws that apply to most citizens of Providence do not apply to Brown students on campus. The most obvious of these is the (lack of) consequences for being caught with drugs. A sophomore male who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity said, "When they caught me with drugs, they called me a delinquent, told my friend he was overweight because of drugs and then I got a slap on the wrist from a dean. They told us I should be glad the real police didn't catch me."
DPS's goal is clearly not to strictly enforce the law. Its true goal could be described as either student safety or, more cynically, the insulation of students from forces outside the Brown community - be they Providence criminals or Providence police.
If the aim is to make Brown look and feel safe, then anyone who looks out of place can be targeted, regardless of whether they merely "look like a Hope High School student" or pose a real threat. DPS' mission of insulation provides peace of mind to the majority of students, but at a high cost to those who don't fit a non-threatening stereotype.
The best way for students to curtail the negative consequences of this philosophy is to increase student participation in DPS oversight. The Public Safety Oversight Committee, whose charge provides for 17 regular members and up to four ex officio members, has spots for three undergraduate students, but only one undergraduate seat is currently occupied. The committee meets two to four times per semester for two hours. Leading the committee is not an impartial observer but instead Chief of Police Mark Porter. Porter could be the very epitome of justice, but the fact that a group that is meant to impartially judge cases of police abuse is governed by the most visible police officer at Brown strikes me as a conflict of interest.
Krishika Acharya '07, a student member of PSOC, told me that it can be difficult for the students on the committee to influence decisions because of their small number. To make things worse, the current system allows UCS to appoint student members instead of letting the student body elect those who would best defend student interests. We should increase the number of students on the committee through student elections.
However, there is only so much student action can accomplish. The administration must also take steps to improve DPS. The last time the University evaluated DPS was in 2002 when President Ruth Simmons commissioned the Bratton Group, led by former NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton, to "review policy and procedures in the area of campus safety." The resulting report famously recommended arming DPS, which Brown has since done. In addition, Bratton recommended improving officer oversight - by, for example, discontinuing the practice of automatically dismissing student-brought cases in which the complainant is unavailable.
In a particularly revealing section of the report, police respond to accusations of racial profiling and abuse of power by claiming that "no signs of institutional racism" exist. Such a radically positive report is hard to believe - it is hard to believe that any group of people can be completely free from racism. What is clear, however, is that Bratton concluded that there is no room for improvement.
Bratton himself is currently head of the LAPD and was involved with the taser incident at University of California, Los Angeles - which achieved its infamy from a truly shocking video posted on YouTube - in which a student studying in the library is repeatedly tasered for failing to show identification. And yet, Brown hired this specific officer to review campus security policy and took his word when he reported that "there is not a trace of racism" among Providence police.
I don't believe the Brown police are racist or that they systematically profile minority students. However, incidents of profiling are inevitable in a police force that routinely acts as though its goal is the insulation of the Brown community from the Providence neighborhoods that surround it. The way to address this problem is to accept the possibility of improvement and commission a new evaluation of the department by an unbiased consulting group, not one led by a renowned proponent of aggressive policing. In addition, the administration must provide students with a bigger part in the supervision of the police so the Brown community can be confident in the impartiality of oversight proceedings.
We cannot wait for more incidents of profiling and abuse. The sooner UCS and the administration take action, the sooner Brown students can enjoy a campus that is not only safe but also just.
If you believe there is an issue on campus that should be brought to the attention of Ben Bernstein '09, contact benjamin_Bernstein@brown.edu.
