Campus police reorganize

Friday, January 24, 1997

UCPD:

Agency aims to change false perception that UCLA is unsafeBy
Scott P. Stimson

Daily Bruin Contributor

With a new paint scheme on its police cars and the largest
budget it has seen in the last four years, the UC Police Department
(UCPD) stands ready to hire six more officers and make internal
changes that will affect the way the Westwood campus is
policed.

During the more pressing times of the early 1990s, when other
departments at UCLA were receiving less money, the university
police maintained annual budgetary increases.

"Departments were being asked during the early years of the
decade to reduce their staffs and they faced one year of budget
cuts after another year of budget cuts," said Assistant Vice
Chancellor of Facilities Management Al Solomon. "That kind of hard
budget cutting was not happening here."

This year, UCPD is operating on a budget of about $5.4 million
dollars ­ about 15 percent higher than its budget in fiscal
1993-94, according to Jim Lazear, director of facilities management
finance.

Part of the budget increase has gone toward a reorganization of
the department. This shift involved the elimination of the rank of
lieutenant, the paying of a severance package to the outgoing chief
and a 7.5 percent pay increase to stem the loss of officers to
other, higher paying police departments.

But in spite of the budgetary advantages the department has been
granted over the past four years, UCLA’s police department has
taken a closer look at how the campus is policed and sought ways to
improve the department.

Instead of throwing money or officers at a problem, officials
said, the department is instead looking into what they consider
more effective ways to keep the campus safe.

The number of officers can fluctuate between comparable
campuses, said UCPD Chief Clarence R. Chapman. At UC Berkeley,
which is about the same size and in a similar area to UCLA, the
department consists of about 80 sworn officers ­ 20 more than
the 58 that serve UCLA.

But more officers do not always translate into lower crime
rates. In fact, with the help of UCLA’s Community Service Officer
(CSO) program, sworn officers can be left to do more pressing
policing in the community.

According to UCPD Capt. Karl Ross, UCLA has the largest CSO
program in the nation. The 250 student CSOs help the UCPD by
providing nighttime escorts, security for campus libraries and by
also doing routine tasks such as opening locked classrooms.

"As it turns out, we’re expanding the role of (the department)
to go into the community and use different kinds of programs other
than police officers and quite frankly those other kinds of
programs … are turning out to be much more productive and
beneficial in reducing crime than actual police officers going out
there and making arrests," said Ross.

While the budget for the CSO program does not come out of police
funds, it falls under the same "community safety" rubric under
which the police department is also funded. This year, the
university has given $2.4 million to fund the CSO program and other
services like the Women’s Resource Center.

With all the programs and service the police department
provides, the most important area of change the UCPD brass is
focusing on is the campus community’s perception of the campus as
unsafe.

"The biggest problem that we have as a police agency is this
perception people have. You can throw millions of dollars at a
problem and all it takes is one incident and the public perception
is that (UCLA is) a dangerous place," Ross said.

But when compared to the crime rates in the rest of the city,
the UCPD contends, the campus is actually rather secure.

"Just looking at the numbers only gives you a piece of the
story," Ross said. "We’ve sort of known it on an anecdotal basis
that, compared to the surrounding community UCLA is a very safe
place to be, to come to school, and people shouldn’t be concerned
for their safety," he added.

While UCPD officials agree that UCLA is a very safe place
compared to Los Angeles as a whole, crime will occur on campus no
matter what the UCPD does.

"I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we’re not going to
have crime at the university," Chapman said. "We’re going to have
crime. There is no way that the police chief is going to sit in his
office and say that we are going to eliminate crime," he added.

However, even if crime cannot be eliminated, the UCPD says that
it is changing and making goals to become an efficient agency.

"My goal is to establish a credible police department that the
community has confidence in, that when one of these unfortunate
incidents do occur, there is a feeling within that community that
we have done the best we can to address those crimes," Chapman
said.