10 Reasons There is a Disconnect Between On and Off Campus Safety at UW-Madison
1. WiscAlerts are only sent when there is a threat to campus. And, ONLY campus.
WiscAlerts are sent to students by the UW-Madison Police Department at times involving immediate threats to students or employees on campus, about a range of health or safety concerns. Students will receive the alert when there is a “time-critical threat to campus.”. It is up to the UWPD to determine what information is invaluable or unnecessary, leaving the campus police as the distributors of potentially crucial information. These on-campus—and ONLY on-campus—jurisdictions can cause miscommunications for on-campus and off-campus UW-Madison students and employees.
2. There are simply SO many students.
Complete notification of 100-percent of the campus population is truthfully impossible. With an undergraduate population of 30,360 along with 8,962 graduate students, it can be complicated distributing 44,411 total alerts. However, the UWPD should find a stronger, more efficient way to communicate with students, since the WiscAlerts just aren’t cutting it. The UW-Madison community should not just give up on this matter, as they are giving up on the students’ safety. There should be an alternative form of alerting the UW-Madison community, whether from a new app or a new WiscAlert system in totality.
3. Indistinct Boundaries of UWPD and Madison Police confuses members of the UW-Madison community
With a recent student who was arrested by campus police during an off-campus fraternity party, and later denied an internship because of the arrest, the topic of indistinct boundaries between police forces has been on the rise. A common solution that is recognized when researching this issue is a Memorandum of Understanding, which lists terms of each police force, as a way to create structured boundaries. However, the UWPD and Madison Police don’t seem to have this understanding. This lack of an MOU, is what leads to the disengagement between the on campus and off campus students.
4. The difference between Campus Security Authority and Campus Police
People tend to believe that Campus Security Authority is directly correlated with the Campus Police. Campus Security Authority does not constitute as part of the UWPD. This authority, who is solely responsible for on-campus security, is definitely a part of the problem and not the solution. The problems on campus start from the Campus Security and stem to the UWPD and Madison Police Department. The only solution to this matter is to foster a closer connection between these departments to bond a closer community.
5. The 75/25 issue
Taking a look at statistics and our limited on-campus housing facilities, it is no shock that 75% of students live off campus, leaving only 25% of students residing on-campus. Therefore, if an incident occurs near any of these 33,308 students’ living environments, they are rarely ever notified. Living off campus, there are multiple armed robberies in homes across the street from one another. Reading about two men breaking into a students’ home with guns, and realizing that no students were notified is upsetting and concerning, as students must come to terms with the lack of information truly received. The students who live off campus are not only left in the dark, but are put in even more danger.
6. Tackling these Off-Campus issues, can come with a price.
When taking into consideration off-campus residency, it is difficult to cover all aspects of ensuring student safety. The amount of time and money it would take to have complete coverage and inspection of all out-of-state residents would require money that would ultimately come out of the students’ pockets. It also comes along with the issue of how UW-Madison does not have control over privately owned property, yet still is responsible for fostering a safe environment for its students. The line is blurred.
7. The line of jurisdiction between campus and city police is obscure
Living in a society where everyone either fears or welcomes the idea of “stepping on someone’s toes,” the lines of jurisdiction between campus and city police is very, very blurry. Campus police and city police don’t have the same level of training and professionalism, as well as their requirement to disclose less information than city police. This lack of training puts on-campus police automatically at a disadvantage because they simply can’t do the same things. College police forces facilitate privatization that creates a confused, less accountable community.
8. Campus Crime Statistics focus primarily on ON-CAMPUS violations
When looking at the 2017 UW-Madison Campus Crime Statistics, it becomes quite evident that the basis of most campus crime statistics is reported to demonstrate issues that occur on campus, despite the fact that most students live off campus. When someone delves into research about this issue, the Crime Statistics main focus is the on-campus issues, leaving no time to consider how many off-campus issues effect the students. Many students live on Langdon Street or Mifflin Street, which are both a mile away from campus. When a dangerous event happens on those streets, on campus alerts are STILL NOT released, merely due to the concept of distance.
9. The City of Madison Incident Reports demonstrate dangerous events that students will NEVER be notified about
Taking a peek at the City of Madison Incident Reports, readers will get a horrifying glimpse of the dangers that Madison residents are exposed to on a day-to-day basis. However, the laundry list of crimes that have been committed and reported on the hour, remain unknown to the entire Madison community. If a student is signed up for both on-and off-campus reports, they rarely get informed about dangerous events that have taken place a mile, block or even a few feet from their residence. On February 17, 2019 there were three robberies, a missing person’s report, weapon violation, and battery assault, all in the proximity of a 1-3 mile radius from the UW-Madison campus. However, shockingly, students never received one alert on any of these matters, which poses the question regarding what else could be happening that they will never know about.
10. The issues with the Clery Act
The UWPD is closely required to follow the federal Clery Act, which states that the police department should administer “timely warnings and emergency alerts to alert campus community members when specific crimes have occurred in a clearly defined geographical area.” So, what does that mean? The UWPD is ONLY required to provide alerts when a crime occurs, or is occurring on campus. This federal law that UWPD is intended to follow, facilitates the issue of not reporting off-campus issues, in an attempt to only keep students in “the know” about on campus incidents. So does the Clery Act need to be altered in order to create a safer UW-Madison environment?
off-campus safety 