SafeBears responds to UC President Drake’s remarks on campus safety and our private security pilot program
SafeBears has the attention of UC leadership at the highest level – that’s the positive takeaway from the April 18, 2024, UC Berkeley Campus Conversation with UC President Dr. Michael V. Drake. While not mentioning SafeBears by name, both the moderator and President Drake indicated they had read the extensive media coverage of the SafeBears Private Security Pilot – citing our program (which ran March 6-23, 2024) as a jumping off point to discuss what the University of California is doing to keep students safe. (View the recording here, with safety discussion beginning at the 25:30 minute mark.)
President Drake began by emphasizing the importance of campus safety:
All the things we do require us to have a safe and comfortable place for people to learn and to think and to work and to do their research. Our campuses should be an oasis of safety in our complicated world.
🔥 Those inspiring words perfectly capture the mission of SafeBears, as we work with campus and community partners toward a vision of an “oasis” allowing students to learn, grow and thrive at the best public university in the world. 🔥
Unfortunately, President Drake’s remarks took a disappointing turn, as he downplayed crime concerns at Cal, calling the risk “while not zero . . . awfully low.” He further stated that the SafeBears private security ambassadors did not address any security incidents and that the program “didn’t change things much, it just kind of reinforced that generally things maybe aren’t as bad as one might have thought.”
It appears President Drake was not aware that during our program, one of our safety ambassadors intervened to rescue a young woman from her male attacker. It is also worth noting that President Drake enjoys a dedicated security detail and multimillion-dollar security fencing around his house, courtesy of the UC Regents, which is ultimately paid for by UC families. While we are not questioning President Drake’s need for heightened security, his rosy view of crime at Cal may be influenced by the extraordinary safety measures he receives.
Some of the security guards in the SafeBears Private Security Pilot: Bay Area residents who are licensed, trained & background-checked.
Every person, including President Drake, is entitled to their opinion about crime and safety at UC Berkeley.
But let’s look at the facts:
👉 👉 UC Berkeley is the #1 university for campus crime, based on 2022 data collected by the federal Department of Education under the Clery Crime Act. Serious crimes on and adjacent to Cal property in 2022 totaled 719, versus 516 for the university with the second highest amount. Comparing crime statistics at Berkeley to other urban universities like UCLA, USC, Columbia and the University of Washington, Cal students face a disproportionate threat from crimes like robbery and aggravated assault. (You can compare data for multiple schools on the DOE website.)
👉 👉 According to the FBI, the city of Berkeley has a crime index of 1, meaning that 99% of municipalities in the US are safer than Berkeley.
👉 👉 Violent crime in the city of Berkeley rose 15% in 2023, with sex crimes and robbery both increasing, according to the Berkeley Police Department’s Annual Crime Report. As reported by The Berkeley Scanner:
Pedestrian robberies and carjackings were both up significantly in Berkeley last year.
Armed robberies saw a five-year high, with 29% of Berkeley robberies involving a gun last year.
Property crime was up about 10%, with burglary, auto theft and arson all increasing.
👉 👉 Here are just some of the serious crimes that have occurred on and near campus, many during the day or in the early evening hours, in the first few months of 2024:
Shooting on Lower Sproul Plaza at 8:40pm with scores of students in the vicinity, plus another late-night shooting near campus;
2 sexual assaults in which Cal students were tackled to the ground, one at 8pm near campus and the other on a campus path;
3 daytime violent incidents at the West Crescent, including two strong armed robberies and an aggravated assault;
Mid-afternoon robbery via knife outside the Physics Building;
Multiple other robberies near campus, including one where a gun was brandished, one where the victim thought he felt a gun at his back, and most recently one in the middle of the day at Caffe Strada across the street from campus.
(For more information about some of the crime and security issues from the fall ‘23 semester, read our Fall Safety Update.)
👉 👉 Californians throughout the state and across the political spectrum are increasingly worried about crime, including “in the traditionally liberal San Francisco Bay Area,” according to the nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization Cal Matters, which adds:
Facts bolster the sentiment. Last July, Attorney General Rob Bonta, a strong criminal justice reform advocate, released annual crime data, revealing that the state’s violent crime rate increased by 6.1% in 2022, and property crime was up 6.2%. Homicides dipped, but robberies jumped by 10.2%.
Berkeley PD data, via The Berkeley Scanner
President Drake concluded his remarks by stating, “I think overall we do a better than average job” maintaining community safety.
SafeBears respectfully disagrees.
Yes, UC Berkeley has made some key safety improvements over the past 12 months – including UCPD’s hiring of more sworn police officers and student community service officers, and the administration’s closure of People’s Park. But, overall, university administration continues to move too slowly in providing safety measures appropriate to the security conditions in Berkeley. A case in point is Cal’s new nonsworn safety responder role that is currently stalled by bureaucratic red tape and is “at risk” for failure, three years after the UC system instructed campuses to prioritize tiered policing.
So SafeBears will continue to press ahead with our safety priorities while holding university and city leadership accountable to make the changes we need to keep our students safe.
And Go Bears! 💙 💛
P.S. If you would like to let President Drake know your thoughts about his remarks and about Berkeley campus safety, his contact information is here.
