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Credit: Photo by Nick Romanenko
CSO trainees from Rutgers-Newark march
in file on their way to a traffic safety
lesson
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Rutgers Police Officer Leroy Washington asked a class of student community service officers the procedure for questioning a group of three potential suspects. His extended, roving finger landed on Emma O’Flanagan, a junior from Livingston College. She surmised that separating the friends would be best, so that one’s story doesn’t influence the others.
O’Flanagan was right. Her studies as a criminal justice major have made her a natural for the job of a campus community service officer (CSO). She will be patrolling a new beat this semester as the program has expanded permanently from campus borders to parts of the City of New Brunswick.
“I want to be a cop, so I figured this would be a good way to get some experience,” O’Flanagan said. A visit to one of her classes by Rutgers Police Chief Barry Roberson convinced her to apply for the job.
O’Flanagan is one of 48 new student community service officers who provide extra eyes, ears and support to the 56 sworn police officers and 44 full-time, nonstudent security officers on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus.
The program further expanded following the success of a six-week trial period last spring after two home invasions on Stone Street in New Brunswick resulted in the rape and assault of Rutgers students. Previously restricted to campus, the student patrols fan out this year to the Fifth and Sixth wards of New Brunswick. Bounded by College Avenue, Easton Avenue and Huntington Street, the two wards are home to large numbers of students living off campus.
“The area is an excellent place to integrate the community policing practices that work so effectively to reduce neighborhood crime,” said Jay Kohl, executive director of public safety at Rutgers, who modeled the CSO program after similar programs he launched in Michigan and Iowa. “Rutgers’ CSO program truly exemplifies the community policing philosophy that calls for building partnerships with communities to fight crime. It only makes sense that a university and police department should develop these kinds of partnerships with students in their own community.” A secondary benefit of the program, but even more important in the long term, Kohl adds, “is the improved relationship that naturally develops between police, security officers and students.”
The program is also new this year to the Newark campus, replacing the Student Marshal Program. The 15 new CSOs in Newark will patrol campus, help with special events, staff security kiosks, and work with police and security officers, said Campus Safety Director Martin Roddini.
In Camden, police Sgt. Harvey Johnson said the CSO program is about two years old. There are 15 officers, and it’s likely that two more will receive training in January, Johnson said. The officers in Camden patrol the campus, help pedestrians cross busy streets and escort students from campus to the downtown transportation center. They have assisted police officers with arrests in the past, Johnson said.
The CSO program got its start at Rutgers in 2000 in the wake of the Seton Hall University dormitory fire and the subsequent state law mandating automatic sprinklers in all college dorms. The Rutgers Police recruited students to escort sprinkler contractors in and out of residence halls and about campus.
Kohl said that Joyce Sagi, then a first lieutenant assigned to security operations, was instrumental in the development of the program and used her years of experience working with students to get it off to a good start, Kohl says. Sagi is now a supervisor for security and compliance for the Division of Housing.
Upon the success of the first eight student CSOs, the program expanded to include the Knight Mover bus, on-campus foot patrols and bag screenings at major sporting events following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Since the program’s expansion last spring, the student CSOs took action in 106 calls, including 21 reports of suspicious persons or vehicles, four altercations, five medical calls and two hit-and-runs resulting in DWI arrests. Although they won’t have any official police powers, such as carrying a firearm or arresting a suspect, the students may find themselves involved some sticky situations.
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