A recent increase in crime near campus prompted leadership from the Cornell University Police Department, the Cayuga Heights Police Department and the Ithaca Police Department to hold a panel discussion last night to clarify the facts of the recent spike in crimes and explain the prevention systems in place.

Organized late Wednesday evening, a day after the University sent out a fourth crime alert in the past month, the panel consisted of CUPD Chief Kathy Zoner, IPD Chief Edward Vallely and CHPD Sgt. Jim Steinmetz.

“We decided to hold a forum tonight because we’ve had a little bit of feedback from the community about questions about safety on campus,” Zoner said at the beginning of the meeting. “We wanted to provide an opportunity for questions to be asked and we wanted to try to provide some upfront answers.”Getting in the zone: CUPD Chief Kathy Zoner and IPD Chief Edward Valley, representatives from local agencies address, police procedures last night in RPCC in response to a recent wave of crimes.

The primary topic of discussion was the crime alert system and Emergency Notifications Systems. Put in effect to keep students informed in the event of an emergency under the mandates of the Clery Act, these systems, including SMS text message alerts, have recently garnered significant criticism from students. Some feel they were not adequately warned in timely fashion of the occurrence of these recent violent events. The text alerts, a registration-based service provided by the University, was not activated in any of the recent crimes, including the stabbing incident on Nov. 10, a particular concern for many students.

“There are very specific guidelines that we are intended to follow with a very specific mission and purpose and that mission and purpose is to give enough information to the community to keep itself safe,” Zoner said of the University’s student alerts. “It is not to be a replacement public service announcement, it’s not to be a replacement media report, it’s not intended to give details of the investigation out. It is intended to give the bare minimum out to the public with the idea of identifying that an event of importance or concern happened.”

According to the panel, the University released appropriate information on the recent incidents within an appropriate time frame for all of the recent events. The level of alert, the officials said, was directly related to prior experience in similar incidents and “hundreds of collective years” of experience in police work. They also asserted that text message alerts, which 43 percent of students are registered for, would not be nearly as effective as email alerts in reaching the majority of students and should be reserved for immediate emergencies.

In looking at the increase in crime, the panelists asserted that the recent trend can be seen as a spike, rather than a significant increase in crime. One possible cause was a recent increase in drug activity in the Ithaca area, which has been a primary cause in previous crime spikes, they said. According to Vallely, Ithaca has recently experienced an increased presence of high quality, inexpensive heroin.

“We are seeing an increase in drug-related calls and activities, arrests for everything from marijuana to some higher level drugs,” Zoner said. “You can easily see a correlation between increases in violent crimes with the increase in drug calls. My invitation to people is to not bring the drug culture up to campus and that will cut out a lot of the issues we are having as well.”

The panel also addressed the need for personal responsibility among students, using common sense to prevent personal victimization.

“What you remember, especially in the Cornell community, is that you are a target rich environment,” Steinmetz said. “You’re here to learn and you have the best toys, and when you have people who are less fortunate and do these crimes, they’re going to look for the easy, target rich environments.”

The panel emphasized the need to minimize the opportunities for crime near campus. One particular area of concern is the level of home burglary in student housing, which is expected to increase over winter break.

“The simplest precautions would help so much. Lock your doors; lock your windows. If you get four people living there and no one wants to lock the door for fear that they don’t have their key, you’re just making it too easy,” Vallely said. “Its not often that we have burglaries where people kick in your door or break your window. They don’t have to.”

The officers urged students to take every precaution before leaving for break to protect their belongings, either taking smaller valuables home over break or investing in protective measures around Ithaca. They also recommend registering for the text message system to ensure safety in the event of an emergency.

“In 365 metropolitan regions throughout the United States, including cities of all sizes, Ithaca ranks number three, as the third safest city. All of the residents of Collegetown are the responsibility of one police officer” Vallely said. “It’s a tribute that we are able to effectively police such a large population with such a small number of officers.”