Lost in all the commotion following the protest and arrests of January 27 has been the question of whether the University of Chicago might be well served in dissolving its private police force. To some, it may seem intuitively apparent that a large police presence contributes significantly to Hyde Park’s low crime rate, but students should not make this an unreflected assumption. Rather, it seems the UCPD provides the same deterrent to crime that a posted security guard would, and that their most visible policing occurs after Hyde Park’s most endemic crime, namely theft, has been committed: i.e., documenting occurrence of theft. I suggest we find out what, in fact, the UCPD contributes to the safety of the student body, and then evaluate whether it is worth it to maintain this institution.
For a benefit to our security that, if not marginal, is at least an unknown quantity for most of the student body, we are asked to pay a heavy price. Each year a Mauriece Dawson is placed in a chokehold on A-Level, or a girl from King Prep is bruised up at a sit-in. These incidents are only a fraction of the cost associated with having a private security force on campus. In addition, officers’ searches for perpetrators often target young black men, whether student or one of our neighbors, with no part in the incident. Michael McCown’s experience (documented in a Jan. 28 op-ed entitled “Police Blues”), in which one of his volunteers working for a program at the University left Michael’s sight for only a brief moment and was detained because he fit a “description,” is illustrative. To suggest that a racial disparity in coercive demands for identification, as well as accidental and overenthusiastic arrests, is not an inherent cost of the UCPD’s presence, but rather an incidental failure of procedure or training, seems to me willfully naïve.
This is not to say that the University does not have good reason for hiring a private police force. Rather, we, as the student body, should at least take into account all of its consequences.
—Greg Hedin, fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Germanic studies
Wow, I cannot believe you have been here for 5 years and you think it is reasonable to even ask this question. If you dissolved the university’s police force Hyde Park would be overrun in about 5 minutes. The campus police risk their lives every day to protect you and if you think that is of marginal benefit then Hyde Park is probably not the best place for you to be.
Are you kidding me? This is why we have a police force.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/us/22chicago.html?_r=0
“In addition, officers’ searches for perpetrators often target young black men, whether student or one of our neighbors, with no part in the incident.”
Yeah, well, it doesn’t take a statistics major to figure out that the majority of crime in Chicago, particularly on the South Side, is perpetrated by young black men.
At this point pretty much every university in the country has its own campus police force. In California, even the community college have them.
I suppose I should not be surprised by now … On the issue of the necessity of a trauma center on campus, there has been no consideration of peer-reviewed research (see below) on the relevant issues, only untested (and quite heated) claims. Where does Toussaint Losier, 8th year graduate student, stand on these findings? Is he aware that they exist? Why not support the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab (http://crimelab.uchicago.edu/page/about-us) which was launched to use insights from basic science to help government agencies and non-profit organizations develop innovative new approaches to reducing violence, and work with them to test new innovations using randomized trials …
Then, I find this letter from Mr. Greg Hedin, 5th year PhD candidate: “For a benefit to our security that, if not marginal, is at least an unknown quantity for most of the student body, we are asked to pay a heavy price.” No evidence whatsoever is given. Is he willfully naive?
Well, I have a suggestion given these disturbing patterns … We should ask whether the University of Chicago’s intellectual community might be well served in making sure its PhD students do graduate within 4 years … We should ask indeed whether Mr. Hedin contributes to a weakening of this intellectual community. Let us hope that this is not some example of “his foray into narratology” that gets incorporated into some pseudo-intellectual project.
1. On the median transport time (11 minutes for the North Side vs. 15 mins for the South Side) and association with mortality: (Newgard CD, et al, Ann Emerg Med. 2010 Mar;55(3):235-246.e4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19783323)
2. On whether medicaid loads and uninsured populations are risk factors for higher rate of trauma center closures: (Shen et al, Med Care. 2009 Sep;47(9):968-78, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=understanding%20the%20risk%20factors%20of%20trauma%20center%20closures)
3. Access to trauma center in the US: (Branas CC, et al, Journal of the American Medical Association 2005, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15928284)
Your proposal, “Be Balanced,” seems to be that the university should rough up graduate students more often. = ) Especially pesky Humanities majors.
You seem distracted from the issue at the heart of Greg Hedin’s letter. The university police are obviously going to have to address concerns about how they interact with students, now that there have been repeated incidents of unnecessary roughness.
And they’re going to think again about race too.
On the trauma center, the statistics are open to debate: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=202666
Urban environments and gunshot wounds might be a unique situation. National studies might not be relevant. It’s worth finding out more about.
Second, I’d actually be curious to hear more about why Northwestern University, of a roughly comparable size and with a roughly comparable endowment, has made the commitment to a trauma center that the University of Chicago declines to?
Third, I’d like to hear a more reasoned discussion about the costs of a trauma center. Even if you were right, and there wasn’t a correlation between survival rates and proximity to an emergency room, it looks really, really bad for this university to be turning people away. What’s the balance between the cost of providing that care and the damage done to the university’s standing in the community? That is a serious question, on which reasonable people can disagree.
I’m not advocating roughing up graduate students. And I believe in the power of the Humanities to provide solutions to the problem of gun violence and social inequity.
The URL you provide needs to evaluated by peer review. And I believe the issues it raises have to be part of the discussion.
What I am against is that the protesters undermined their aims by entering the hospital illegally. It indicates quite clearly to me that their interest is not in reasoned discourse. I focused on Mr Hendin’s letter since, as is now characteristic of the discourse on the trauma center, there is little from the powerful training he has received in the unsubstantiated comments.
There are plenty of programs that exist only here at Uchicago that Northwestern does not have. We cannot insist that they should have them as well to benefit its community. They may well end up giving up their adult trauma center to the community’s detriment!
Uchicago spends over 200 million dollars on unreimbursed care — over 20% of operating revenues: http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2012/20120601-community-benefit.html . We cannot expect Norrhwestern to do the same.
Why not support UChicago’s Crime Lab which aims to reduce gun violence!
I advocate a more balanced discussion.
Here are some of the ways in which Uchicago makes a difference to its community — on a routine basis — by doing what it does best, namely conducting scholarship and research that influences public policy:
1. Uchicago Crime Lab research findings influenced the city of Chicago’s expansion of a violence reduction program whose effectiveness is supported by social science research:
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/02/07/city-cites-crime-lab-data-funding-innovative-youth-program
2. UChicago’s Urban Education Institute providing social-research-based diagnostic tools and training designed to produce effective urban schooling
http://uei.uchicago.edu/about
Let us not forget the 4 campuses of the UChicago Charter School, located in neighborhoods across the South Side, close to the University.
3. There are enormous health disparities on the South Side that, to me, do not get adequate press (while those who protest for a trauma center get more than deserved): diabetes, breast cancer, HIV infection and lack of access to basic medical care. Why not support Uchicago’s center for health disparities research?
http://arrafunding.uchicago.edu/investigators/gehlert_s.shtml
4. UChicago’s partnership with the state of Illinois to train more than a quarter of its nurses as certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners. The hospital treated 106 sexual assault victims in 2011 — more than any other Chicago hospital.
Just as Mr. Hendin’s letter mentions only the student body in questioning the cost of UCPD as if Hyde Park did not also include staff, faculty, and other residents, most discussions of the trauma center ignore a much larger issue of unmet health care needs and disparities and the limited resources in relation to the enormity of the unmet needs … The protesters point to the new hospital building and assume many things about resources, etc. Have you been to the old hospital buildings and seen how totally inadequate they are? The hospital’s investment in upgrading its infrastructure is a long-term investment.
What cost is UCPD to UofC:
Do you value life? Being able to go to your classes without fear? Being able to go to your friends house and enjoy yourself intellectually? Have a fast response time when you need help? Be able to protest without fear of being robbed or shot? Wouldn’t you feel more at ease knowing that help is coming when a “bad guy” sticks a gun to your face and demands everything you have? Whether you are black or not, male or female, I would want help to come now with just a press of a button or a phone call away……….. So i ask you this, how much is your life worth Mr. Hedin?
Like you and I, we value our lives each and everyday. So to put a number on the heads of UCPD Officers is naive all in itself because they are human beings just like us.
So I question your reliability, opinion, and experience in this matter Mr. Hedin. Being that you are a fifth year graduate student and a candidate for Germanic studies, what, if at all, do you know about crimes in our community other then what you see or read on the news? ……. …..
My point being; you have absolutely insufficient facts to support your naive statements to degrade UCPD with a response time of less then 2.5 minutes compared to 15-23 minutes when you call the city on major calls. Personally, when someone sticks a gun in my face with the barrel between my eyes, I would want the quick response time so they can catch the “bad guys” and swiftly return what is righteously mine and be thankful that I’m still alive.
Life is priceless and to question our safety to fulfil your egotistical beliefs because you may had, at one point or another, a bad encounter with UCPD? Then you are just as bad as the guy you are accusing. Believe me, I’m just as much as a minority as you are. To put race into the picture where the vas majority of the surrounding community are black is just ignorant because a crime requires a victim, and it is up to the victim to describe who their suspect is, not the Police. So I ask you again, how much is your life worth Mr. Hedin? -a community member and realist.
What Mr. Hedin seems to forget is that the UCPD, despite being a university sanctioned police force, also provides protection and safety for the resident of Hyde Park. As a student and long-time Hyde Park resident, I can attest to the effectiveness of the UCPD as an ancillary force to CPD, which often ignores the emergency calls of South Side residents. I can attest to the wonderful services that are provided by the UCPD for both student and non-student residents. Every police force has its problems without question. The UCPD can and should be reformed. To suggest its dissolution is selfish of you, Mr. Hedin, and shows a remarkable lack of understanding for the full value of the services provided by the UCPD.
Completely agree with MKC.