Inconsistent enforcement tarnishes image of RUPD

By Yan Digilov     3/18/10 7:00pm

Picture this: You're a freshman in your second semester of college, on the verge of the most exciting week of the school year. To get the festivities started, you throw a kegger the likes of which no freshman has ever imagined, attracting guests from across the university. After hours of drinking and dancing to the wildest 1990s house music your DJ could find, the crowd dies down around 1:30 a.m., and you see a girl from across campus lying in the corner.It's your room, and after seeing your neighbors get sent to the county jail for smoking pot last week, you make the drunken decision that your "tobacco pipe" and rainy day stash could be found if the police enter your room. Just then, your buddy calls you to chill in the other room. You wake up the next morning with a headache, walk back to your room and find that the girl has .

This image is not supposed to fit in our university. As feasible as it may be at nearly any other school in the country, a system is in place here to ensure the safety and comfort of everyone on campus. But that fabric of mutual respect that exists between the student body and our campus police is being stretched. Could the Rice University Police Department be taking its first steps along a slope that could one day end in tragedy?

At Rice University, RUPD officers have historically been our friends. Officers have breakfast with us, share words of wisdom and attend college events to make themselves accessible to the community. They have never ruled with an iron fist, instead taking a philosophical stance against actively searching for ways to incriminate the student population.

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But for all the understanding and cooperation that exists, RUPD must understand that in order for its efforts to work, every member of the force must be on the same page at all times. Every time a new officer comes on board, for every day that it takes him or her to "get it," the student body moves further and further away from the relationship of trust that has historically enriched our campus. Every time one officer chooses to prosecute a student to the full extent of the law in a situation where another may have looked the other way, RUPD sends the student body a clear message that they cannot be dealt with openly. Worse, this kind of inconsistency serves to undermine their legitimacy as a law-enforcing body.

Take, for example, the recent hiring of three additional parking officers for the evening shift. Students from the north colleges have been astonished to find tickets on their cars that are parked along President's Way, after years of having done so without punishment. Despite the clearly marked parking lines, we have been told that the rules have stated for years that no parking is permitted. These rules were not enforced before, because no one had ever been given the task of enforcing them.

This sudden change of heart from RUPD in enforcing their own rules is questionable at best, delinquent at worst. They must understand that a sustainable set of laws on our college campus cannot simply change due to revolving doors of employment. Such irresponsible behavior not only costs students time and money but also depicts our law-enforcing body as out of touch and unreasonable.

That danger of being out of touch on a college campus goes far beyond giving a few extra tickets, however, for the direct stream of communication between RUPD and the students is what ensures that no student will have second thoughts about asking for help when it is needed. For years, Rice has relied on this relationship to create an atmosphere that feels safe and free, despite being located in the center of the fourth-largest city in the United States.

When single officers take actions that are uncharacteristic of the rest of the force, they are directly impacting the safety of this campus. While officers who have built an admirable career here serve to give us a sense of comfort and security, those officers that are perhaps better served on the Houston Police Department's payroll turn the arm of the law into a randomly spinning wheel of punishment, ruining the lives of young people who thought their protectors could be trusted.

Today, on the verge of our most cherished tradition, it should be clearer than ever that any attempts to actively seek out and incriminate members of the student body amounts to blatant malfeasance. Too often, the decision to prosecute students through Harris County or give them a slap on the wrists depends more on the alignment of the stars than precedent. If students that are causing no harm and privately gathering behind a closed door are in random danger of being sent to the Harris County jail, what are we to expect when hundreds of intoxicated people are dodging trucks in broad daylight?

How can RUPD justify blind enforcement in some cases and claim ignorance in others? The answer is that they cannot, and every time an unreasonably harsh judgment happens to coincide with an officer's bad day, a light of incompetence shines on all of RUPD - even on the majority who are unequivocally working to keep us safe.

Of course, as students, we are required to recognize that our actions have consequences. This, too, is an important lesson that our law enforcement officers are burdened to impart. In that sense, there is a very fine line that must be maintained on this campus to improve everyone's experience.

But my message to RUPD is simple: Officers that cannot handle a bit of nuance have no place on our campus. The perceived arbitrariness of the law will lead to an irreparable disconnect, and as campuses across the nation show, that disconnect can eventually lead to an entirely preventable mistake. Our campus police cannot appear to have the legitimacy of dueling, incommunicative parents, inexplicably shifting from caring and understanding to intolerant and antagonistic.

Such a process unfortunately starts with unexplained parking tickets, moves on to uncharacteristic arrests and leads to unworkable situations where very intelligent young people are working to keep as much as possible from the keepers of safety. This is a future that does not look like Rice University. It works against the Vision for the Second Century. It leads to danger and is all too likely to snowball if RUPD does not learn to speak with a unified voice, connecting with students in more ways than merely making an appearance at cabinet meetings.

Some of the most memorable lessons that I have learned here have come in conversations with very intelligent, caring officers of the law, but I am now embarrassed to say that some irresponsible behavior has come from members of the same force. I sincerely hope that this changes, for the good of the student body and for the good of the future of this institution.

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