It's hard to imagine a DePauw without DePauw Public Safety. We're all familiar with the relationship bewtween the officers, the students and the university.
While officers of both Public Safety and the Greencastle Police Department are their own law-enforcement entities, they both go through the same training and, significantly, have overlapping jurisdictions.
Public Safety, much like our campus, is one component of the Greencastle community in which we live — trusted with the duty to serve the law-enforcement needs of the campus.
With many DePauw-specific concerns being managed by Public Safety, the Greencastle Police Department is able to focus its attention and resources on responding to the needs of the community at large, which covers a much larger population and geographic area.
The students of DePauw benefit from the presence of Public Safety in that we have an immediate first-response to all (not many, all) of our major and minor security requirements.
Officers of both corps mentioned in the story on page 6-7 that they have some discretion in handling some petty crimes, and on this campus, we should be aware of the benefits we receive as a result.
Those of us in violation of the law will not always be charged, either by Public Safety officers or GPD officers. Some of us will be warned, and possibly even cared for, by uniformed men and women seeking to promote the welfare of the community.
That said, we can neither be ignorant of nor intentionally ignore the potentially troubling disparity in correctional measures between students and non-students. This isn't about Public Safety and the GPD, though. It's about the Community Standards process.
Community Standards provides corrective, potentially rehabilitative alternatives to arrest and incarceration for students in violation of the law — usually involving probation, but also educational and reflective components.
These measures are not available to those outside our bubble, leaving them bound, at times, for a more "efficient" juvenile justice system without the time or money for similar rehabilitation efforts.
To be clear, we believe in the benefits of the Community Standards process, and our concerns with this disparity do not stem from DePauw, Greencastle or even Indiana.
We are simply acknowledging that we are very privileged to have these second-chance alternatives, but they are alternatives that should be available to all of those found in violation of the law — everyone.