Campus safety is at the forefront of April’s elections and the race between Eli Judge and Lauren Woods for District 8 alder is no exception, as both have released detailed campus safety proposals.
“It’s important to get neighborhood officers in our streets,” said Woods, a UW-Madison senior. Adding more lights in specific areas is also important she said.
Woods released her safety plan last week and it pointed out that the streets are not the only place where crime, specifically sexual assault, occur. An examination of trends indicates that house parties are often the locations of sexual assaults because they are unsupervised and “encourage the culture of binge drinking,” she said.
Her opponent, Judge, a UW-Madison sophomore, emphasized the importance of “immediate results” in constructing a safety plan in his safety proposal released Wednesday. Judge said he is working with campus groups to expand on ways to make the campus more safe.
Both candidates said they want to curb the number of crimes on campus, specifically sexual assaults. SAFE services are a way to help stop some of the high profile crimes, according to both Judge and Woods.
“There is some work that needs to be done for people who report sexual assaults and making sure we support programs like SAFEwalk and SAFEride on campus,” Woods said.
Judge’s initiative suggested that adding more buses to the SAFEride program and working to decrease poverty would combat crime. He said poverty is at “the root of some problems [of] campus safety.”
Angela Rose, UW-Madison alumna, founder and national director of Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment (PAVE) said Woods’s strategies to counter sexual assault were promising.
“Lauren Woods has a thorough understanding of the sexual assault epidemic that plagues campus. She will be an articulate voice for changes in policy and practice to combat sexual assault,” she said in a release from Woods.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk endorsed Judge and said he would help make Madison a better place.
“I’m very impressed that Eli has consulted so many campus and community leaders in developing his safety plan. In particular, his neighborhood watch program will be a critical ingredient in helping students feel safe on their own sidewalks again,” she said in a release from Judge.
