In my mind, there are two types of Safety and Security officers. The first is the right type. These are the Safety and Security officers that acknowledge their role as protectors of students' safety and security, and act accordingly. These officers take sick students to Dick's House and makes sure that students are acting in a reasonably harmless way. The other type of Safety and Security officer is the one that bothers me. These are the officers that work as if they were cops.
Police officers, of which Hanover already has plenty, are law enforcers. They are employed by the town and paid with tax money to catch law offenders and bring them to justice. Society needs police officers to keep order and make sure that the laws that exist for our safety are upheld.
But Safety and Security officers were not hired for this same reason. The 2008 annual Clery Report states that Safety and Security has "a primary objective to help provide a safe and secure environment through preventive patrol, emergency response, problem solving, programming and activities." That sounds like a mighty fine mission statement to me. Despite this goal, I have witnessed many situations with Safety and Security officers that did not reflect these ideals. And, not surprisingly, these situations almost always happen with officers whose faces I don't recognize new hires that I suspect are fresh after finishing a job working in law enforcement. The campus veterans, who understand how best to serve Dartmouth, don't make these mistakes.
I see this dichotomy between appropriate and inappropriate Safety and Security actions most prominently in two domains - parties and swimming in the river. Over sophomore summer, no Greek houses can host parties with alcohol, due to the lack of 21-year-olds on campus. From a liability standpoint this makes sense. However, it is incredibly unrealistic to think that because of this policy, Dartmouth students will refrain from gathering in groups of over 40 what officially constitutes a party on a Friday night. Given this reality, it's more than likely that on a weekend, Safety and Security officers might find themselves at an unregistered party.
An appropriate response from Safety and Security upon encountering a party should not be to immediately break up a party. Instead, reasonable things to ask might be are the hosts of the gathering staying vigilant about their guests? Are IDs being checked? Is alcohol consumption being monitored? This is the "good" response because it actually helps to "provide a safe and secure environment."
The "bad" Safety and Security response is to treat the situation exactly as a law enforcement individual would, with the response, "There are underage students drinking. This event should not happen." No matter the actions taken by Safety and Security, there will always be underage drinking. And by taking any and all underage partying as an affront to their moral superiority, "bad" officers are only driving our group gatherings, both literally and figuratively, further underground.
Interactions with Safety and Security at the river late at night display a similar dichotomy. In the summer, coming from a hot dance, students like to cool off. The river is a great place to do this. Granted, it's not the safest option, but as long as students are looking out for each other and aren't swimming when they're dangerously drunk, it's reasonably safe. An appropriate response to this situation might be to assess whether the students are looking out for each other, or if are they swimming far apart or alone. Are the students noticeably drunk? Does this look like a quick dip or like the Ledyard Challenge? I'm not saying that Safety and Security should cheer us on while we do the challenge, but rather should let us know that we've had our fun and that the safe thing to do now would be to get out of the water and go home.
Sadly, however, many "bad" officers believe the appropriate response is to forcibly yank the students out of the water regardless, and write them up. This doesn't discourage students from swimming; it only encourages them to run away from Safety and Security as fast as possible and not leave any ID on the dock. One friend of mine was so scared of getting written up by Safety and Security that he hid under the dock and Safety and Security, thinking he had drowned, spent the night on a boat checking the river for him. If he knew that Safety and Security only wanted to help him swim safely, that entire situation would have been avoided.
The typical response of someone our age to seeing a police officer is to avert our eyes. These are, after all, the people who bust you. There's no reason, however, for us to have this reaction with Safety and Security officers. These should be the people who look out for our safety, not the people who bust us. Granted, occasionally busting up something that's truly dangerous is a part of promoting safety. But, as long as students are practicing these "illicit" habits of drinking and swimming in a safe and responsible way, Safety and Security should guide, not prohibit.
