Student Security Patrol: Working the Graveyard Shift

The Student Security Patrol began in October 1972 primarily as a fire-watching crew, with 14 students. The patrol worked only in the Houses and was generally a small operation.

Now, however, it has 70 guards covering 200 shifts a week. Its function has greatly expanded, and it patrols several administrative and classroom buildings--William James, the Science Center and laboratory buildings--in addition to the Houses. Every weeknight there are 12 student guards on patrol, and 25 are on duty Friday and Saturday nights. Last year Harvard spent $125,000 on the program, and this year it will cost considerably more.

Lt. George Hill of the Harvard police and Sandy Maier, a second year law student, supervise the program. They began recruiting student guards by calling the financial aid departments of the College, Law School, graduate school and Divinity School, and telling them about the program; now guards just find out about the program by word of mouth and are hired pretty much on a first-come first-served basis. The only requirement for guard is that they must be attending the University and cannot be College freshmen. There are five woman guards.

All the guards get about 40 hours of training before they start working regular shifts. They learn fire protection, first aid and other emergency procedures, and do trial runs with experienced guards.

Hill and Maier like to call the student patrol the "eyes and ears of the police;" the idea is that the student guards look out for things the police should know about and by doing mostly unskilled police work, give the real police time to concentrate on more difficult tasks. The student guards find broken locks and fire exits, lock and unlock buildings, and report building damage and serious crimes. "They are," Hill says, "taking non-police functions away from the police. And when they're off duty, they're just as suspicious as ever. Police go home after work; the student guards are always around."

I asked Hill and Maier if they considered the student security patrol really necessary, if the student guards really make a big contribution to stopping major crimes, fires and floods, and if Harvard is getting its money's worth out of the program.

"The University profits from the program in several ways," Maier said. "It enriches the student population--more than half the guards are on financial aid--as well as fulfilling security functions. Before the patrol began there was a two-to-one ratio between crimes in dormitories and in administrative areas. Now it's one-to-two. We've driven crime into the fringe areas.

"Sure, on any given 4-hour stretch, nothing happens. But you've got to consider the possibility of loss of life; it hasn't happened yet, and we play a major part in keeping that record as it is."