A Kinder, Gentler Police Force

The Harvard University Police Department has come a long way since the days when 400 police officers--most from surrounding areas--ejected students from University Hall in 1969.

Dressed in riot gear, with acid-proof coveralls, helmets, masks and shields, they didn't hesitate to wield their batons in forcibly removing students from the building.

But today, even as the campus sees a new wave of civil disobedience, students are more likely to praise police officers than fear a use of force.

HUPD Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley says that change in officers' relationship with the student body has come through community policing and better training.

Riley said reaching out to minority students--who have not always praised the department--has been a top priority since he arrived at Harvard in 1996.

"It became apparent that there were communications issues that needed to be addressed, particularly with black students and ethnic [minority] students. I wanted to make sure that the problem [of troubled relations with minority students] . . .was not just a rehash of one incident, and I really didn't have a clue as to how to go about trying to analyze that."

After surveying minority students about their attitudes toward the department, Riley instituted sensitivity training and focused the department on a community policing model.

"We put every member of the department through training for community policing orientation," he says. "One of the biggest benefits is that police have gotten to know the students. The idea that they are here to police the students is a thing of the past, and dealing with and getting to know the students, faculty and staff around campus, the officers have a better realization of the what the Harvard community is all about," Riley says.

He says the program has succeeded in bringing police officers closer to the students they serve.

"Students have had very, very few complaints about officers' behavior in the past few years," he says. "Students have come to respect and know the police officers more now that they're around and in the Houses."

Under the community policing model, a student's first encounter with Harvard police officers may come during a community safety presentation during the first few days of school.

James Y. J. Ko '00, a former prefect, says these HUPD presentations given to all first-year proctor groups, "reinforce the fact that [officers] are people that care about our safety first and foremost, but they also show that they care about us as people and they're interested in getting to know us as well."

Other recent HUPD-organized outreach programs include the addition of HUPD substations in Harvard Yard, the Quad, Harvard Business School and the River area, as well as the bike and laptop registration programs and Rape Aggression Defense classes.

Ko, who has also served as a proctor in the Harvard Summer School Secondary School Program, says he thinks campus police officers' extensive interaction with Harvard students--based on reaching out to students before crime occurs--is fairly unusual.

"I know from friends that go or have gone to other colleges, the relationship between the students and [the police department] is antagonistic, but I don't think that's the case at Harvard," he says. "In all of my dealings with them, I've experienced nothing but good things."

Still, the department has its critics, particularly when strings of robberies stir student concern.

Erika T. Rhone '02 said she saw an increased number of community advisories when she lived in Leverett House over the summer. She felt her sense of sense of security threatened when a stranger followed her along the Charles River on the way to Leverett House late one night and called HUPD about the incident.

Perhaps because of the increased police activity, Rhone says, when she first called she "didn't find them to be too receptive." However, she adds, when she "had the luck" of being connected on the phone to an officer she knew, the officer "checked the scene and called me back immediately and was very thorough."

Because of what she perceives was a less-than-ideal response from the police, Rhone says she thinks it is up to the students to take responsibility for their safety as well as to listen to HUPD for advice on how to stay safe.

"I think that a lot of the fault can be placed with the students, when they automatically assume that Harvard is a safe place just because it's Harvard," Rhone said.

A case in point is last year's crime spree in Harvard Yard, when the so-called "Yard Burglar" robbed dorm rooms in Matthews Hall. Despite warnings from HUPD, many Matthews residents left their doors unlocked, and the crime spree continued.

But many students say officers deal well with crime victims.

Ko says that when several of his summer school proctees had money stolen from their rooms, HUPD officers were helpful in responding, although they could not track down and return the valuables.

"They were very reassuring while taking reports and were quick to offer helpful advice to my students on how to avoid situations like that in the future," Ko said.

Other students--even those who are often at odds with the University administration and the police department--praise the department.

Progressive Students Labor Movement (PSLM) member Stephen N. Smith '02, who has participated in a number of protests requiring police presence, offers only good words for the HUPD officers he has interacted with.

"I have been consistently impressed with their professionalism and good will," he says. "Members of the HUPD are some of the most under-appreciated and irreplaceable components of the Harvard community."

Despite some tense moments during the six-hour PSLM takeover of Byerly Hall during pre-frosh weekend last year, Smith says HUPD officers on-scene "handled the situation well."

Katherine M. Gregory '01, a member of Crimson Key Society, says that in addition to working with HUPD to plan orientation events for first-years, she took a self-defense class taught by several officers.

"I really think they're great," she says.

Thanks to these community policing efforts, HUPD believes the days of a tense relationship between students and police officers are long gone.

"You know the myths about Harvard students, the silver spoons, that they're brats," Riley says. "The officers know that this isn't the case. Everybody has a frailty, the officers see the frailties in students, and sometimes students see frailties in officers, and out of that has developed a mutual respect."