3/2/2012: It’s about power. Nina Bernstein reported on this in the NYT back in November:
On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings.
The UO administration is refusing to allow the committee set up to monitor our new police to even call itself an “oversight” committee. They hate that word.
So, imagine some football player gets arrested by the UO police for, say, stealing a student’s laptop because it has pictures of him doing bong hits on it. Who will decide whether or not to report this to the Lane County DA for prosecution? Doug Tripp and his direct boss, Jamie Moffitt? The UO President? After consulting with whom? Does anyone know the answers here?
Thanks to Portland blogger Jack Bogdanski for the link and the reminder of our earlier post on this.
Effective law enforcement requires experienced investigators to interview victims,witnesses and suspects,protect,process,and preserve crime scene and other evidence,conduct follow-up investigation,prepare cases for trial,
and provide testimony.Time is of the essence in all of this.
The skills required are different from those needed to write parking tickets.
dead duck quacks yes, all good points, and most were sent by dead duck to at least one FAC rep and passed along to RL and JB, but this is an example of the lack of adequate accountability of the vice prez structures. where there is any accountability, the constituencies are very narrow, and where the constituencies are broadly representative there is little accountability. in dead duck’s, ‘airogant’ opinion, we should be looking for a prez who will commit to a fubndamental rethinking of how central admin structures match up with mechanisms for accountability. for example, contrast the frequent face to face accountability of dept heads or even college-level administrators to their faculties, to the weak, infrequent, ill-informed or even misled, faculty engagement with manycentral administrators.
All u have to do is tell a cop u want to press criminal charges and they do. If u refuse to press charges, then there is no victim. No victim there is no crime. Atleast with our own police department if a football player commits a crime and the victim does not want to press charges they guy still goes threw student conduct. If anything with a sworn officer all action they take the university can’t try to cover it up.
I had a crime commited against me last year by an athlete. I chose not to press charges. Dps still wanted the guy to be held accountable for his actions so they sent him through student conduct. At that point the university covered it up. I should of pressed charges.
Moral of the story is. If u want people to be punished and not get away with things. Press Criminal charges.