Police Union Asks Harvard To Hire More Patrolmen

The head of the union representing Harvard's police officers yesterday responded to student demands for increased campus security by calling on the police administration to hire more officers to patrol high crime areas.

Laurence F. Letteri, president of the Harvard Police Association, released a statement criticizing the University police department for its failure to hire any new policemen in the past two years, and for stressing crime prevention techniques and the hiring of student security guards as alternate solutions to the security problem.

"It appears that the budget seems more important than police protection," Letteri said. "Every time there's a periodic cycle of crimes, locks and bolts are emphasized to pacify badly frightened people," he added.

Letteri said he was responding directly to statements by police administrators following the rape of two students in Leverett House last week. The incident led the police force to announce an increased program of instruction in crime prevention techniques, but administrators have not said they will hire more patrolmen.

The union will continue to demand that Harvard hire more armed patrolmen, instead of unarmed student guards, he added. Letteri would not say whether the union will raise the issue of increased hiring during its ongoing contract negotiations with the University.

William A. Lee, acting chief of University police, said yesterday the police administration shifts officers to different areas of the Harvard campus on the basis of computerized crime statistics.

When crime rises in one area, the department shifts officers from low-crime areas, he said. He added that the department would not hire any more police officers unless several areas showed a simultaneous increase in crime.

"If there was an overall pattern of increasing crime around the University, we would consider hiring more men, but right now that has not shown itself to be the case," he said. "To carry additional weight which would necessitate additional cost would not be good management," he added.

Student reaction to the recent presentation by May and Harrison appears mixed, with about 50 GSAS students requesting application forms for the program.

Several students questioned whether the program would have more than short-term stop-gap effects on the employment difficulties of humanities Ph.D.s. Students interested in corporate careers should be discouraged from entering Ph.D. programs and enter business schools instead, they said.

May and Harrison, however, believe their program will have long-term effects. As they state in their NEH program proposal, "If hopes become realities, graduate humanities departments will be populated at the end of this century with students who seek college or university teaching as merely one of several possible career tracks.

"Many students--including many of the best--will routinely go on to administrative or managerial posts in business or government.