Ninety full-time, licensed residential community safety officers (RSCOs) will be staffing all Syracuse University residence halls 24/7 by the end of January. Their main duties will include validating the identification of individuals entering the building and signing in visitors. Additional changes to the guest policy include guests of a resident being signed in at the front desk 24/7.

But, is this change enough to reassure the safety and security concerns of all students residing in on-campus housing?

Before the changes, security personnel simply checked that individuals entering the dorm had the correct security dot on their ID to ensure that they lived in that residence hall. Despite this, it seemed like some security personnel never even cared if the picture on the ID matched up with the person showing it.

However, since RSCOs are New York state-licensed security officers and will have been trained by SU’s Department of Public Safety, they most likely will take campus security more seriously and thoroughly check the ID of every person entering the building.

Previously, a guest may have entered the building before the check-in time and then resided in the building without ever having their ID validated.

This became a problem as it essentially made some visitors invisible in dorms, as there was no written documentation of them ever being there. This meant students could anonymously commit crimes, including hate crimes, as the university wouldn’t have any evidence to suspect them.

However, having guests signed in 24/7 will allow the university to know exactly who is in every residential hall.

These new changes will help increase dorm security as they prevent students from sneaking into buildings and enabling SU to know exactly what guests were in which residence hall at what time.

Published on January 13, 2020 at 10:11 pm