U. Illinois-Chicago Investing in Police Due to Rising Crime
Students believe “the local leadership’s policies are putting them at risk.”
University of Illinois-Chicago students wanted the school to break away from the university police last year.
Not so much anymore because of rising crime on campus. Students even said “the local leadership’s policies are putting them at risk.”
From Campus Reform:
During Fiscal Year 2018, the UIC requested that its Board of Trustees approve “unarmed security services” for the following year. In response, the BOT approved a four-year contract award with two security firms.
The contract was negotiated between two security firms for September 2018 through September 2022. One of the security firms’ contracts was increased from $1,600,616 to $3,563,944 during FY19. This change did not require the Board of Trustees’ approval because it was “below the threshold for BOT review/approval.”
A March 2020 change order reveals that this increase was not sufficient as the Police Department requested an additional $3,000,000 be added to the security firm’s contract through FY 2022.
As a result, the BOT recommended a change order in March 2020 to increase funding to $6,073,112 to cover estimated expenses for FY 19-22. The board estimated that FY 20-22 would cost $1,890,986 each year.
Over one year later in July 2021, the BOT published in a change order that the FY19 actual cost was $1,196,628.68 and the FY20 actual cost $2,914,374.21. The combined difference from the 2020 estimate was over $803,138.
The July report now estimates FY21 will cost $3,721,637 and FY22 will cost $5,883,361.11, a combined difference of $5,823,026.11 compared to the 2020 estimate.
This change order added $4,779,091 to the firm’s contract which runs through FY2022. That modification brings the new total estimate to $13,716,001 for the entire security contract.
In line with the revised budget, the document states that “the need for unarmed security guards has increased each year since the contracts with the vendors were executed.”
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Comments
Unfortunately the “security” offered by all-too-many commercial security services tends to be of little value. It’s not as if such firms attract the best and most capable people after all.
Perhaps they’d do better to invest the money into turning the campus into a recording panopticon: at least that way it might be possible to deter crime by identifying the perps and prosecuting them.
Assuming you could then find a prosecutor willing to do so, of course.
Students whine that university policing puts them at risk.
Students whine that removing university policing puts them at risk.
Any life choice is apparently fatal.
Students are just going to have to curl up and die.