Harvard's Still an Open Door To Cambridge Crime Wave

"Kindness is not always rewarded. Two freshmen allowed a stranger to stay with them. They also provided him with a key to the room in case they were out when he wanted entry. He disappeared with the jacket belonging to one student and $45 belonging to another. The man was short of spending money."

This entry, a deviation from the laconic simplicity of abbreviation-filled police reports, reflects much of the frustration of Harvard police officials. More than 55 per cent of all on-campus thefts last year resulted from unlocked doors in administration buildings and dormitories.

While the walls surrounding the Yard, the structure of the Houses, and the design of most of the campus seem to have captured the traditional atmosphere associate with Harvard, they do little to prevent Cambridge's crime problem from becoming Harvard's problem, too--Harvard is battling serious security problems. Losses from theft amounted to about $140,690 for the 1974 academic year as opposed to $96,061 for 1973. Last year Harvard spent more than $1 million on security. This year's sum will definitely be greater.

The key to the security problem for Harvard is Cambridge. Cambridge, according to the annual FBI's publication, had a crime index rate more than twice as high as that of the national average.

Stephen S.J. Hall, vice president for administration, says that security is his number one problem. Money to boost security, Hall says, will be spent as needed and if the administration thinks an increase in resources will in itself be effective Already wiring has been completed for call boxes that will be installed around Harvard this fall. The call boxes will be telephones with a direct line to the police dispatcher. They are planned in such a way that a pedestrian should always be able to see a call box when walking anywhere on Harvard grounds at night.

But most students and administrators don't believe the crime wave can be slowed only through the physical improvements Hall devises. Although the administration last year distributed free whistles to students, established an escort service through the student security patrol, leased buses for safe transportation, installed brighter street lights, purchased seven new cruisers, and tried to make students "security consious" the crime statistics continued to skyrocket.

Where the administration has freely allocated money for security improvements, it seems reluctant to fight the crime problem by increasing its police force. Harvard has not hired additional foot patrolmen recently. Larry Letteri, president of the patrolmen's association, claims that too much money is invested in gimmicks and not nearly enough goes to ensure adequate police coverage.

Letteri said that three years ago the department had 62 patrolmen; now it has only 52. Other patrolmen also say that even the most sophisticated warning equipment must be backed up by the foot patrolman. "What good will a whistle do, if there is no patrolman around to respon?" one skeptical officer said.

Letteri and other patrolmen think that there is not enough personnel on the force to adequately cover all of the grounds. Letteri suggests that a patrolman should always be stationed at Peabody Terrace, Holyoke Center, and the Graduate school of education. Since there are 15 routes to be covered for three shifts per day by the 52 patrolmen and some are always sick or on their off days, Letteri charges that routes are routinely undermanned.

Robert Tonis, chief of University police, however says that cruisers driven by sergeants provide for additional coverage of all routes. Letteri said that cruisers are not as effective as footpatrolmen. The department, he says, has 2.5 supervisors per patrolman, a situation he called, "all chiefs and no Indians."

Tonis's successor will inherit cruisers, a professional staff, the security patrol, and new communications system and everything else Tonis has added to the Harvard University Police. But despite all the equipment and manpower, the new police chief will also inherit the task of figuring just what it will take to reduce, or at least level off, Harvard's whopping crime rate