Last week, The Daily Cardinal Editorial Board sat down with District 8 Ald. Scott Resnick to discuss current happenings in the downtown Madison area.
Among other city issues to be further discussed in future editorials, this Board came to the
conclusion that additional allocations for policing downtown is something every student should not just want but expect.
Upon drafting Madison’s 2014 budget, the Madison Police Department requested an additional $100,000 in funding for additional staffing to increase police presence downtown during peak hours, namely weekend nights and gamedays.
As students, many of our natural reactions are to be skeptical of an increased police presence downtown. It would only make sense for us to conclude that more police equal more bar raids and house party crashes, which oftentimes does not bode well for students.
The police officers provided through this additional funding, however, would not be part of the “community action” team, meaning they would not be concerned with busting underage drinkers, crashing house parties and conducting bar raids. Their additional presence in the downtown area would be for preventative measures to discourage more serious criminals from acting.
We need to realize that the police are on our side. As bitter about getting underage drinking tickets as some of us might be, keeping our campus free of more serious violent crimes is the police department’s number one priority. We need to recognize this and advocate for them to receive the resources they need to continue to do that to the best of their ability.
Understanding this, we need to do the best we can to help them help us. According to Resnick, many perpetrators of serious crimes in the downtown area can be caught if someone is able to describe them. Often, however, when a drunk student sees a potential incident they opt to not report it out of fear of putting themselves in a situation where they could be penalized for something such as underage drinking.
If you see something that seems off, make sure to report it—even if you have been drinking. Police seeking out serious criminals are not interested in spending their time giving out tickets for drinking, especially to someone who is trying to help them. Any help you can offer could be the tip that keeps yourself or someone you know out of harm’s way.
We all need to do our part to keep our community safe. We can start by recognizing that students, city officials and police are all on the same page.
Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
