Campus Security

A group of students plans to form an organization to raise student awareness of violent crime at Harvard and to improve security, Elisabeth M. Einaudi '83, one of the group's founders, said yesterday.

Einaudi said Students Organized for Security (SOS) will circulate a petition asking the University to "take greater care in protecting its students from crime." She added that the group's other goals include the establishment of a rape hotline and an office to assist students with crime-related problems.

"We want to work with the University to establish prevention programs oriented more towards the protection of people than of property," she said.

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, said yesterday he welcomes any student group working to further security awareness.

"I don't think a petition in necessary for any reasonable steps to be taken to improve security," Steiner said, adding that his office plans to distribute a questionnaire on police and security to students and employees in about ten days.

Einaudi said several women interested in security problems--who originally approached the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) about the issue--devised SOS.

"We felt that a sufficient problem of crime existed and that University Police statistics do not accurately reflect crime in the Harvard area," she added.

Steiner said the monthly police statistics are not designed to show all crimes committed in the area and that there "is certainly human error" in the figures. "They serve as a rough barometer of the extent of crime," he added.