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Student Association Chief of Staff Kailee Vick introduced policy recommendations addressing bias training and transparency within the Department of Public Safety at an Assembly meeting Monday.

The recommendations are the product of multiple student focus groups about the department and include increasing bias training for officers, prioritizing diversity in hiring and improving communications. The focus groups, which local nonprofit InterFaith Works helped facilitate, took place in the fall.

Based on those discussions, SA proposed more frequent trainings for officers on internal bias and diversity, with at least one training per semester. It also suggested that DPS publish information on its website about officer attendance at each training.

The recommendations also included the creation of a portal, with the help of Information Technology Services, that would allow students to check on the status of their cases, a move which could help create a centralized point of contact for students tracking down reports and updates.

SA also recommends that the department prioritize diversity in its officer hiring process and provide aggregate statistics about officers’ race, gender and geographic diversity. It also proposed the department release aggregate revenue and expense summaries and disclose information about its current assets, as some other university offices do.

SA presented the policy proposals to the department on Thursday, Vick said.

The recommendations come after the publication of former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s 97-page review of DPS, which is the product of a year-long investigation into how the department interacts with members of the Syracuse University community. The report found that there was a serious erosion of trust between DPS and the campus community. Lynch and her team outlined 23 recommendations for the department, as well as protocols for a review board that will oversee complaints against officers.

Over winter break, Vick developed the policy proposals with many members of SA, including Speaker of the Assembly David Bruen, Parliamentarian Josh Shub-Seltzer and Student Life Committee Co-Chair Ella Beauchaine. 

During the focus groups in the fall, students raised similar concerns to those considered in Lynch’s recommendations, particularly within communications, complaints and accountability, and hiring and training, Vick said. Like Lynch, SA also proposed that DPS publish all available and appropriate standard operating procedures. 

The proposals are just one step in addressing how the department engages with members of the campus community, Vick said.

SA members hope to institutionalize the SA-sponsored student focus groups on DPS as a permanent initiative and that the department will allocate DPS funding to the service.

Published on March 16, 2021 at 1:04 am