For 17 days, a non-public safety pressure patrolled UC Berkeley on foot and on bicycles however didn’t step onto the campus or coordinate with campus police.
The SafeBears ambassadors made their rounds all through the evening and into the early morning, sporting shiny yellow uniforms however carrying no weapons. However the extremely rated college didn’t deploy the additional safety element. They had been paid by dad and mom involved for his or her kids’s security whereas attending the school throughout a surge in crime.
And the college just isn’t completely happy about it, saying dad and mom ought to as a substitute be donating to bolster the campus safety crew.
This system ran from March 6 to 23 and was shaped in response to what SafeBears organizers see as an insufficient response from the college to a rising crime downside in and across the college.
The dad or mum group paid roughly $42,000 for six unarmed guards to patrol across the scholar housing and south of the campus.
“There have been some requests for service, escorts or instructions. However actually the No. 1 service these guys offered was simply their bodily presence being a deterrent to crime,” stated SafeBears founder Sagar Jethani, who’s a Southern California resident and father to 2 UC Berkeley college students.
SafeBears ambassadors patrolled from 6:30 p.m. to three a.m., and organizers hope the college will create their very own everlasting nightly ambassador program. The pilot program was meant to finish as college students headed out for spring break, Jethani stated.
College officers haven’t precisely welcomed the SafeBears effort with open arms, saying in an announcement that this system “raises a variety of issues together with the coaching and expertise of people employed by such corporations.”
UC Berkeley additionally stated any safety effort needs to be coordinated with the College of California Police Division, no matter the place the cash comes from.
“A holistic method to campus security is required and is the simplest method,” the assertion stated.
There are roughly 1,300 members beneath the SafeBears banner — involved dad and mom who meet on-line, Jethani stated. By comparability, UC Berkeley has 45,699 college students, together with about 33,000 undergraduates, in line with the most recent knowledge from the college.
UC Berkeley legislation professor Jonathan Simon is skeptical in regards to the SafeBears ambassadors program, telling the San Francisco Chronicle it “appears extra like a stunt than research.”
In an electronic mail to The Occasions, Simon wrote, “The picture of campus as awash with crime was exaggerated to start with.”
The SafeBears dad or mum group shaped after an October 2022 taking pictures that unfolded outdoors the college and left one man useless and three others wounded. No college students had been concerned within the taking pictures and the college employed a non-public safety firm to patrol across the campus for a short interval.
Jethani, a advertising and marketing government for an audio agency, stated he was upset by the college’s response to the incident and an general improve in crime that has not resulted in additional safety guards being employed to patrol across the campus.
From 2021 to 2022, robberies on campus jumped from 14 to 25 per 12 months and aggravated assaults elevated from 54 to 63, in line with the most recent knowledge from the U.S. Division of Training. Sexual assaults decreased from 34 reported rapes and incidents of fondling, all the way down to 17 for each classes the next 12 months.
Experiences of auto thefts surged from 81 in 2021 to 307 the next 12 months, with nearly all of thefts being e-scooters and e-bikes.
Reported crimes off campus additionally elevated over the past 12 months, in line with the Berkeley Police Division. There have been 7,960 whole violent and property crimes in 2023, versus 7,201 within the earlier 12 months, with a soar in sexual assaults, robberies and burglaries, in line with the most recent knowledge.
Campus police make use of 45 sworn officers, with three recruits within the police academy, in line with a college spokesperson. The college additionally has an ongoing partnership with the town police division and presents safety providers corresponding to an evening shuttle. College officers are additionally working to broaden the hours for their very own campus ambassadors who work within the area.
The SafeBears ambassadors arrived at a tumultuous time for the campus.
In January, just a few months earlier than the ambassadors arrived, UC Berkeley spent $7.8 million to deploy a police pressure to filter out Individuals’s Park, the storied 2.8-acre inexperienced area that activists seized within the Nineteen Sixties to function a gathering area for nonconformists. The college constructed a 17-foot-high perimeter across the inexperienced area that’s anticipated to be developed into scholar housing.
College management can also be embroiled in a standoff with a gaggle of protesters who’ve taken over a central bridge on campus. Protesters calling for a cease-fire within the bombing of Gaza by Israeli forces have blocked entry to Sather Gate at UC Berkeley, prompting Chancellor Carol Christ to name for a reexamination of the college’s procedures surrounding protests, in line with the campus newspaper the Each day Californian.
SafeBears ambassadors had been skilled and vetted via the safety firm StreetPlus, which already has a contract with the Downtown Berkeley Assn., a nonprofit property house owners group.
Jethani known as the pilot program successful, citing an incident wherein an envoy intervened as a girl was being attacked off campus. The lady didn’t file a police report, so particulars of the incident stay with the SafeBears organizers, who say they may finally current their program’s findings to the college.
“We’re somewhat hoping the college will eradicate the necessity for us to proceed doing this by simply placing its personal program in place as they must have by now,” Jethani stated.
College officers say they consider the dad and mom’ funds could be higher spent hiring extra sworn and non-sworn law enforcement officials, a UC Berkeley spokesperson stated in an announcement.
“Dad and mom who wish to donate funds towards extra campus safety can achieve this by way of a college fund that has been established,” the assertion stated. “We don’t consider that non-public safety ought to take priority over hiring sworn officers.”
