When there’s a serious crime within the campus district, the U. of I. police department sends an email to inform the campus community of the situation. Public Safety officials are planning to use the system to share good news as well.
“We’ve done a good job of letting people know when something bad happens, but if you only get the original crime alert message, with no subsequent information, you would never know that the suspect or suspects were apprehended,” said Vernon “Skip” Frost, the U. of I.’s assistant police chief. “We want to make sure that the public knows the police department is following up on these cases and they are made aware when arrests are made. We want our reporting to be transparent.”
To keep the public informed, Frost said the crime alerts will now be followed up with crime alert updates that will include arrests. (This information will not be sent out through the Illini-Alert system, which includes text messages when there is imminent danger to the campus community.
“We think it’s good for the mental well-being of students and their parents, and anyone who works on campus, to know that we’re not just reporting these crimes – we are solving them,” Frost said. “We want them to know that they have an aggressive department that does solid police work.”
He said a good example is a recent theft case at the Illini Union that led to a crime alert being issued. What some in the public may not have known is that the man was caught four days later and linked to several other campus crimes, including two robberies. His arrest also led to the arrest of several accomplices.
Frost said several things have aided the U. of I. police department in solving campus crimes.
The SafeWalks system continues to help students get home safely, thus preventing crimes from occurring in the first place, Crimestoppers is effective in getting suspect information to the public after a crime occurs, and the 1,000-plus campus security cameras give police evidence they didn’t have in the past to make arrests.
“More students are becoming aware of their surroundings and taking extra precautions, and we’re getting better suspect descriptions because of all of the tools we have,” he said.
Crime alert emails are sent to anyone with an illinois.edu email address. Updates are posted on the Public Safety website. Members of the campus community also are encouraged to sign up for Illini-Alert, which sends an immediate text message and email when there is an incident that poses an imminent threat to the campus community.