Protective Services: Just Doing Their Job
University Police vehicle used to protect students on campus. Photo by Kaitlyn Wanta

Protective Services: Just Doing Their Job

According to their website, protective services’ mission statement is to provide University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point students, faculty and staff with a safe and secure environment.

The UWSP protective service law enforcement officers have the same rights and responsibilities as the local police, meaning they could even arrest and take students to jail.

Sam Sauber, sophomore wildlife ecology and management major, has worked with protective services as part of his job as a Community Adviser in Hansen Hall. Sauber appreciates protective services because they arrive in a timely manner and have helped him fill out his first incident report.

“They’ve told us, what was going on and what they were doing and stuff like that and what to look for,” Sauber said. “They’re more about educating, they would rather just see students make smart choices than just bust them and write tickets.”

Sauber mentions the benefit of having protective services so close to the university that they can arrive within a few minutes.

Protective service’s efficient response time has helped other students as well.  

Gail Morris, junior biology major, has utilized protective services in the past when she was being stalked by another student. As soon as she felt threatened, she went to protective services for advice and direction.

“They just guided me in how to help resolve the situation,” Morris said.

Morris was advised to contact protective services again if things progressively got worse.

Protective services recently conducted the 2016 safety walk to evaluate the current outdoor areas of campus for potential physical and personal safety concerns. Fixing lighting issues, walking surfaces and potential criminal concealment areas are observed and fixed if necessary to improve campus security for students and staff.

Protective services also provides crime prevention programs to reduce crime on campus. Some programs offered are alcohol awareness, apartment or room safety, drug awareness, fire safety, operation identification, personal safety and sexual assault awareness.

Since 1999, protective services has been reporting their own statistics to the Department of Justice, who in turn reports to the FBI. The crime reporting statistics are used today as a law enforcement tool, a reference for budgets and scope for identifying crime problems. 

The number of crime classifications were 91 in 2012, 71 in 2013, 76 in 2014 and 46 in 2015. The most prominent crime that protective services encounters is larceny- theft.

Protective services also encounters alcohol and drug-related crimes from working on a college campus. They respect the rights of students and do not enter into a dorm room without permission or court order.

Zachary Jones, junior natural resources planning major, was approached by protective services last year for an incident in the residence hall. Jones believes there is a negative connotation associated with protective services for those students that have been approached by them.

“People just generally don’t like police because they know that they’re enforcing laws that they don’t necessarily like,” Jones said. “Sometimes I think that way myself but I always try and remember, like, well they are just like people too and they’re probably nice to have to enforce these rules whether or not they agree with them.”

Protective services is grounded on an educational approach where they work at educating students about the wrong instead of giving a citation or administering an arrest right away.

Bill Rowe, protective services director and police chief, said, “It’s problem solving at a different level, that’s the difference.”

 

Kaitlyn Wanta

Reporter

kwant593@uwsp.edu

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