Overall, Prairie View A&M University is a safe place where students can feel free to interact, learn, and advance to the next level of life by receiving a quality education. In a small town that mainly consists of the university’s 8,600 college students, it seems as if the crime rate should be non-existent. It seems as though for many years this campus has been a safe area with a low crime rate, or has it?
If someone were to ask the chief of police how safe he feels the campus is, his response would probably support his force and suggest that they were doing a tremendous job at protecting and serving the students and citizens of Prairie View.
Although we have a small campus and a limited number of students, our police department is still understaffed. Considering that the campus isn’t very big, shouldn’t the university take extra precautions and make certain the police department has a sufficient amount of workers on their task force? When will the university make the necessary changes in fixing the problem surrounding our understaffed police department?
Even though these are all questions that need to be answered, it isn’t the size of the police department’s roster that is causing problems, but the quality of service that the police provide.
Over the course of the past school year, I have seen some things that really disturbed me as far as my safety as an on-campus resident is concerned. From the break-ins that occurred in the Village last year, to the shooting that took place during homecoming, there have been many cases in which accidents occurred, many of which could have been prevented if the police were on task.
Many students have developed a perception about the police department, which has caused the police to earn a bad reputation on campus. Although there were no reported break-ins during homecoming week, and the police did a good job of maintaining the security of the campus through their checkpoints, the overall efforts of the police department still raises concerns throughout the student body. In turn, criminal motive has also increased due to the lack of quality service that the police provide. If someone were plotting to commit a crime at PV, chances are they took that risk because they realized university police would have a delay in responding to criminal activity.
Another question that comes to mind is the priorities of the police department. It seems as if the police spend more time in the MSC eating than riding around patrolling the campus. How is it that the police always manage to arrest someone on marijuana charges, but they never seem to catch anyone in the action of commiting crimes such as burglary and carjackings? How is it possible for a student to be stranded in the middle of campus, and when they call the police and ask for a motorist assist, they are told that the police department doesn’t provide that type of service? If an officer can’t even go to help them change a flat, and never catches anyone committing crimes against the community, then what is the purpose of having a task force on campus?
With fights occurring frequently in all quarters of the campus how can students be expected to feel safe while furthering their education? With the recent shooting that occurred, it is self-evident that people nowadays don’t believe in fair fights anymore.
The police department should definitely consider starting an interview process to hire more police officers so that our campus can be better secured. Perhaps if they posted a “now hiring” sign on the bill board on US-290 some good help would follow through and assist our police department. It seems as if the Prairie View police department is always there, but never on time.