Public safety should protect, not party-crash

Living and working in a tranquil environment like Princeton can cause us to forget that crime and other problems can plague us just as they do communities outside the gates of the University."

So begins the message from the Director of Public Safety, Steven J. Healy, ominously suggesting that all is perhaps not as halcyon as it may seem within our orange bubble.

The trouble is, I think Public Safety needs to take another look at this message, because they rarely convey the feeling that they care about students' safety.

Like a Pi Phi who takes a while to realize that her boyfriend can't be going off to away games because the lacrosse team is not yet in season, it was not until I was living on campus this past summer that I began to really doubt Public Safety's genuine affection for those it claims to serve. A friend had been unable to secure campus housing and ended up subletting an apartment a few blocks north of Nassau Street. A few times, one of us would end up hanging out with the other until it was late. While we knew we were unlikely to encounter anything worse than Palmer Square's Hot Topic-outfitted "punks" passing around suspicious brown bag-enclosed bottles, we still did not particularly want to walk home alone. Each time, a call to Public Safety would result in them not wanting to pick up or deliver to an "off-campus" location, despite the facts that we were students and that they had sent out several recent emails about suspicious persons being sighted on or around campus.

Now, my assumption is that when Public Safety sends out these sorts of emails and suggests that if we feel unsafe, we should contact them, that means they want me to call them if I feel unsafe. But maybe that's me just leaping to crazy conclusions.

That was clearly the opinion of the charming officer who drove me back to my summer room the last time I ever called Public Safety. He told me that Public Safety would never pick me up from an off-campus location again because they were "not a taxi service" and that students who get themselves into dangerous situations should be prepared to get themselves out of them on their own and should also carry cash for cab fare at all times. When I asked how he would feel if Public Safety refused to pick me up from somewhere off campus and something happened to me, he replied: "We would deal with that situation when it arose."

It's heartwarming to know that some psychopath will have to turn me or another Princeton student into part of his fetching new bodysuit before Public Safety will actually take any major action about providing its students with more comprehensive protection.

While I know that we're not living in Harlem or New Haven — and that I should probably stop watching "The Silence of the Lambs" — I still believe that Princeton students have the right to a certain amount of respect and protection that I don't feel like we're getting. Public Safety always seems to show up when we don't need them (during parties, long after that guy has finally stopped playing his obnoxious rap music), but rarely when we do. Looking at the endlessly amusing Department of Public Safety Media Log, I see that Public Safety was on hand to handle the apparent theft of a bicycle, though subsequent "investigation revealed the bicycle was locked to the bicycle rack."

They also showed up to the scene of the Scully laundry room, where "a summer student reported feces in a dryer of Scully Hall laundry room." (July 17, 2005 ... I'm not kidding). But when we actually need them, they seem to take their sweet time to tear themselves away from watching football on the Stanhope TV set.

The only real option we have now is P-Rides, Public Safety's free door-to-door service, which only operates during the year, is frequently slow and only runs until 2:30 a.m. Though Public Safety will pick you up after that time, there is that pesky on-campus caveat. Yes, I find it fun to complain, worry and imagine myself dying in a variety of gruesome ways. But I would actually much prefer if we had a 24-hour shuttle that ran efficiently and Public Safety officers who didn't mind dealing with situations before they arose. Cailey Hall is an English major from Los Angeles, Calif. She can be reached at schall@princeton.edu.