WESTFIELD – One of the results of increased use of downtown apartments by college students in the city has been an increased demand for public safety services and that has had an impact on the necessary allocation of police manpower.
Police Chief John Camerota told the police commissioners at a recent meeting that with the return of Westfield State University students to the city for the academic year there are now “a thousand plus kids roaming the streets” of the core district.
As a result, he said “our guys (patrol officers), they’re out straight. It’s been busy.”
“Most of the kids are good,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, they are (good) and it’s good to see them out there.”
But, he said “Just walking in groups at two (or) three o’clock in the morning having a normal discussion is enough to generate calls for service and there’s other things that happen as they’re walking on their way home from local establishments.”
He explained that, after the influx of students living in the core district “we established a non-criminal ordinance violation for under-21 drinking.”
He said that part of the reason for the change was “so the kids wouldn’t have a criminal record as they went on through life” and reported “that program has generated $46,000 in fines.”
Camerota told the commissioners that he had spoken with the mayor and the city solicitor and the mayor had directed the law department to explore using those revenues to fund a self sustaining account “to use for (alcohol related) enforcement activities in the core district.” Although fines totaling about $46,000 have been levied, only about $40,000 has been received.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik said when interviewed later that the increased need for alcohol enforcement patrols downtown has stressed the department’s overtime account and said “the college kids are driving this need for this overtime.”
He said that WSU can’t pay the city for the added costs or send university staff downtown to lessen the demand for police services.
“They struggle themselves,” he said. “For the immediate future we’ll continue to fund it (alcohol enforcement) with overtime” but he said he is searching for an alternative.
Knapik said that funding the alcohol enforcement patrols with citation revenues is only one of the options under consideration.
He said that currently the focus of the feasibility study is to determine if the need for added services is seasonal. While there is an obvious need in the fall, the demand for police services may drop with colder weather limiting outside activities resulting in decreased funding from citations and a concomitant decrease in the need for added patrols.
However, he said, if an additional shift is added to allow more alcohol enforcement patrols and becomes permanent, the costs could again become a burden if it were dependant on citations revenues which might be insufficient to fund the costs of the new shift.
Knapik said that although the goal is to reduce the overtime costs of added police patrols to minimize the impact of the student population in the core district, no decision has been made about how to achieve that goal and a dedicated account funded by citation revenues may not ultimately be the answer.
In Amherst, where town officials face similar problems resulting from the much larger student population at the University of Massachusetts, Chief Scott Livingstone said that the problem was addressed in concert with university officials.
He said that a coalition was established with the university administrators and police officials together with student representatives to address off-campus alcohol related infractions.
He said that a Town Meeting authorized police to issue town ordinance violation citation in lieu of arrests of criminal complaint and said that, in addition to sparing youthful offenders a criminal record, that alternative has been beneficial in two ways.
“We went with the maximum (fine) allowed under state law,” he said. The $300 fine is usually more than the penalty imposed by the court, which is more likely to be in the $50 range.
“We don’t see a lot of repeat offenders when we issue the $300 fine” he said.
He said that the policy also reduces the time and effort expended by officers in enforcing alcohol infractions but pointed out that it still leaves offenders an option to contest the citation.
In addition to police action, Livingstone said that the university now holds students to the same standards of behavior both on and off campus.
“It took us a long time to get them (university officials) to do that,” he said. “We stress that the students have to be held accountable.”
He said that a police captain meets with a representative of the university’s dean of students weekly to discuss any student with whom police have had a negative encounter.
He said that the students who run afoul of the law are counseled and required to participate in programs designed to help them moderate their excesses.
He said that consequences for misbehavior are enforced and, although it is infrequent, students have been expelled when they continue to commit alcohol-related offenses.
