University of Toledo Police Department Assess Crime on Campus

The University of Toledo’s annual security report for 2014 was released on Tuesday, Sept. 29 and details the amount and types of crimes committed on and near campus.

The report lists all the offenses committed for the designated time period and the number of each type committed. The offenses themselves are then broken down by how they’re handled: arrest or judicial referral. There was also a separate section dedicated hate crimes, and there was only one hate crime committed during 2014.

Mary Martinez, Student Conduct Officer and Deputy Title IX Coordinator, said judicial referrals are a process by which the university itself handles the problem, as opposed to getting the police involved. This process is separate from arrests, which the report showed were used to resolve issues less often than judicial referrals.

According to the report, there was a significant increase in judicial referrals for liquor and drug law violations during the 2014 school year, Referrals for liquor law violations on campus jumped from 245 in 2013 to 430 in 2014 while the drug law violation referrals more than doubled from 163 to 360.

Despite the increases in judicial referrals for the offenses, the number of actual arrests on campus due to liquor or drugs and all other offense categories on the report has remained about the same between the 2013 and 2014 school years, with 31 total arrests made for liquor and drug violations in 2014.

Jeff Newton, UTPD chief of police, said while there has been an increase in judicial referrals, it is not necessarily a bad thing.

“The increase has been more on the conduct side,” he said. “I think it can be a product of more education and training in residence life and different enforcement strategies. Instead of calling the police to handle it criminally, it is handled more throughout a conduct process.”

Jessica Lang, a third-year English major, said she believes the increase in judicial referrals should actually make students feel safer on campus.

“Referrals are not the same as arrests,” Lang said. “All those numbers show is that RAs and the police are doing their jobs better and making sure that criminal activity doesn’t occur here. They are stopping things before they have the potential to turn into something that is actually bad.”

Martinez said the increase in referrals would ultimately benefit students in terms of safety.

“We’re working to create a culture on campus that ensures all students are living in a safe, enjoyable environment,” she said. “This training is helping our staff work with students to create it.”

Newton also said UTPD officers are always around campus to help keep the area safe with a 24/7 fully functional police department and an average of six officers on patrol at a time.

Hannah Blum, a second-year nursing student, said she feels UTPD is doing a good job at keeping campus safe, especially at night.

“I always see the cop cars around campus at night and that makes it seem a bit safer,” she said. “People are not going to be as willing to do some kind of criminal activity such as mug someone or worse if they know there is a strong police presence in the area.”

According to Newton, the UTPD has also been offering education and programs to help teach students on how to stay safe.

“This month we are doing the Not on my Watch campaign which is a month-long focus on campus safety,” Newton said. “There are going to be all kinds of events occurring this month.”

The UTPD has also deployed several new safety technologies to help students stay safe when they are on or off campus.

“We have a smart phone application called Rave Guardian and it is free for all students,” Newton said. “It turns your phone into a panic button.”

Newton said the UTPD are doing all they can to keep campus safe for students.

“It is safe to say that all college campuses are generally safe with low instance of violent crime,” he said. “But there are still a lot of things that we are doing to help keep our community safe.”