Department of Public Safety officers will soon begin distributing a business card with their name, information about stops and a call number to all people they ask for identification during field stops.
The new procedure will allow people who are stopped to verify that the incident was properly documented, said Vice President for Administration Walter Hunter, who announced the policy Wednesday at an open forum for the Public Safety Oversight Committee. Hunter said the charge was sparked by concerns that DPS field stop data does not reflect all stops that take place.
PSOC members held the forum in MacMillan 117 to brief community members on the committee's work, answer questions about DPS practices and give students and staff an opportunity to provide recommendations to PSOC members. Attendance was sparse and included fewer than 10 students, most of whom were part of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency.
Field stops were the focus of the discussion, which followed an hour-long presentation on the PSOC's work and an update from Chief of Police Mark Porter on training and security initiatives.
In response to students' questions about the field stop policy, Hunter said stops are made only "when there is some factual basis to ask for ID," such as when an individual is thought to be connected to suspicious activity.
"If students are concerned that there are random inquiries, that's a valid point," Hunter said. "But I think lots of students think we ask for IDs just out of personal curiosity, and that just doesn't happen."
Hunter added that students should be the "primary group" insisting that officers ask for IDs because "it's for their safety."
But forum participants continued to ask questions about transparency, suggesting ways to facilitate trust in the field stop process.
Co-PAIT member C.J. Hunt '07 suggested publishing all field stops and their call numbers in the weekly incident summaries.
All field stops are documented, Porter said, but they are made public only once a year.
Hunter was receptive to Hunt's idea, but he said the suggestion would demand increased bureaucracy that could shift officers' focus away from ensuring the community's safety.
"We want our officers to spend most of their time protecting us rather than preparing reports or fulfilling documentation requirements," he said. "Maybe these stops need to be reported more frequently than once a year, but not so much that it becomes an administrative burden."
Porter expressed concerns about the idea but added that the PSOC "should have a broader discussion" of the idea.
Co-PAIT members told The Herald after the forum that they didn't think the committee made a clear enough connection between security and transparency.
"Transparency is campus safety," said Shane Easter '10. "If there is no transparency, then students don't feel safe around officers."
If the PSOC were serious about transparency, Hunt said, it would publish stop reports on a regular basis without considering it an administrative burden.
"They have this idea that transparency is between students and the University," Hunt said. "But transparency is between the student and the officer in that moment, with community hearing about it that same week."
Co-PAIT members who attended the open forum left with mixed feelings. Ian Sims '10, another member of Co-PAIT, said he felt "good and bad" about the new field stop procedure.
"I don't think it's perfect, but I think they're putting in real effort to address the issues of transparency and accountability," he said.
Hunt agreed, calling the procedure "a promising possibility for safer, more transparent policing." But he added that DPS must discuss the specifics of individual stops on a regular basis to avoid "foreclosing the very type of
discussion they say this is all about."
