By mid-October of last year, there had been four robberies near campus, a gunshot heard on Marshall Street and a stabbing at the Carrier Dome.

Only one violent crime has occurred this semester so far — a student robbery in August.

Department of Public Safety and Syracuse police officers are crediting the reduction to the creation of the University Area Crime-Control Team, which will reach its one-year anniversary on Oct. 18.

UACT was created in response to last year’s spike in violent crimes around the Syracuse University area, and consists of a joint force of DPS and SPD officers patrolling near-campus areas to prevent crimes. The program is expected to continue indefinitely in the future.

“We saw the problem not getting better so we wanted to come up with a more permanent solution than just throwing officers at the problem week in and week out,” said John Sardino, a DPS associate chief who coordinated UACT with Syracuse police. “We wanted to ensure students could walk around the East neighborhood, down on Marshall Street, without feeling they had to constantly look over their back, worried about real serious dangers.”

Out of the 12 public safety notices sent out in the fall semester last year, only four happened after Oct. 18 — the day UACT was announced.

The team consists of six DPS officers and nearly the same amount of SPD officers, who mainly focus on patrolling areas in the East neighborhood and Marshall Street on Thursday through Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., since those are the busiest nights, said Andrew Clary, a DPS sergeant and UACT organizer.

“That whole area is saturated with law enforcement,” Clary said. “There’s us, there’s Syracuse police, whether we’re in marked cars or unmarked cars.”

UACT officers from DPS consist of at least one in a supervisor position and the rest made up of officers who volunteer to be on the team, said Clary.

Sardino said the team has been a definitive factor in the decreased crime rates near campus.

“Criminals are coming up, seeing the saturation, and making a conscience decision to go somewhere else and do crimes,” he said.

DPS officers patrol the university-area neighborhoods, with the role of maintaining a visible presence as an immediate crime deterrent. In the event a crime does happen, DPS officers are the first to respond, while informing and alerting other DPS and SPD officers to arrive quickly to the scene.

Because many of the crimes are occurring off-campus in the university area, they tend to fall under the jurisdiction of Syracuse criminal law, said Sgt. Tom Connellan of the Syracuse Police Department.

The partnership with DPS in the last year has helped SPD keep crimes near campus low, he added.

“We have an excellent working relationship with DPS and it’s only gotten stronger by working so close with them and by being able to share information working with these guys,” Connellan said.

Sardino said the partnership had been equally beneficial for DPS, as SPD officers were often familiar with the criminals in the region and could help identify suspects.

Using the knowledge the team learned in the last year, Sardino said UACT is now able to predict what areas are most susceptible to crimes and when crimes are most likely to happen, based off their previous observations.

After a year of experience with the UACT team, Jon Lebaron, a DPS officer who patrols with UACT, said he believes the team will only improve in the future.

“It was in its infant stage, anytime you have an infant you don’t really know what to expect,” he said. “But now a year under our belt, we kind of know what to look for and what we’re doing. We can be more proactive, instead of reactive.”

As a result of UACT’s presence lowering crime, the officers have been spending the nights ending parties more often than stopping robberies and assaults, he said. The team has seen a number of complaints from residents in the East neighborhood, mostly concerning open container violations and sound reproduction.

Lebaron added that UACT’s responsibility was not only to the students, but also to the residents in the surrounding neighborhood around SU.

“There haven’t been any violent crimes since we’ve taken over. What people might be upset about is the fact that we’re shutting down parties and ‘wrecking good times,’ but that’s what we’re paid to do, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing out there,” he said.

The decrease in violent crimes has allowed UACT to dedicate its efforts to preventing issues such as public intoxication and sound reproduction, Sardino said. But, he added that the focus of the team still remains the same as when it started last year: to concentrate on street crimes.

“We constantly remind the folks that are working what the vision of UACT is, we don’t want that to get overly engaged in the quality of life issues and detract their attention in any ways from what they’re hired to do,” he said.

Due to its success, UACT is expected to continue in the future, Sardino said. He said he personally finds it successful, noting the significant decrease in the number of robberies and violent crimes in the university area neighborhood.

Connellan, the SPD sergeant, said the team helps address the challenges that come with a campus set in an urban environment, for both the city and the university.

Sardino said the results of UACT have shown that the crime-control team is a necessary part of campus safety for students.

Said Sardino: “As soon as we take those officers out of that area, it’d be a matter of weeks before people that commit crimes make that observation and will be back doing what they’re doing.”

Published on October 16, 2013 at 12:12 am

Contact Alfred: alng@syr.edu

@alfredwkng