Code Blue: Security at College Campuses in the United States

Code Blue : Security telephones, with their cool blue lights, are all over campuses. But they’re rarely used, officials say.

Campus security telephones, often topped with signature blue lights, reassure students that help is always nearby. But they don’t make campuses safer, according to college public safety officers and students, many of whom have never used the telephones.

“They seem to make people feel safe,” said Mike Irwin, a senior at Yale University, where the security telephones are prevalent. He said he’d never used one.

“Students have indicated that they feel safer that blue light phones are there,” said Skoulfos, a former director of security services at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s a psychological thing, like walking down a lighted street versus a dark street.”

In an ironic twist, seeing the phones can actually give the students a false perception of safety, which could make the area less safe for students if they let down their guard.

“I feel more secure in their immediate vicinity,” said Cathy Abrams, a senior at Brown University. “But when I see one a few blocks away, I don’t feel so secure because now I’m thinking about safety and I see the phone a few blocks away.”

“I try and tell people this is not going to save your life,” Skoulfos said. He said officers usually respond to calls from the telephones in an average of three minutes, which can be a long time if you’re in real physical danger.

“There’s a comfort level of having them there,” said Ken Finnegan, assistant director of security at Columbia University. Located in an urban environment known for high crime, Columbia has security phones both on campus and neighboring blocks.

But in his four years at Columbia, he couldn’t remember an incident when police intervened as a result of a security phone call, nor did he know of any arrests. He estimated that the telephones are used for just five to 10 actual emergencies each year. In fact, only one security administrator that AskStudent.com contacted, an assistant police chief at Northwestern University said he knew of an incident where campus police stopped a crime in progress because a student used the security telephone.

Not frequently used

Students at Northwestern use the telephones three or four times a week, but it’s often “somebody seeing some[thing] suspicious, seeing someone out of place. They’re normally not being attacked.”

At the University of Vermont, a rural campus compared to Northwestern, a patrol captain estimated that only one “emergency” is called in a month. “A typical [emergency] call is someone sees someone that makes them nervous,” the captain said. “People sometimes call in if they see someone else’s problem.”

The blue light phones are only part of a larger campus security program that involves other crime-prevention techniques, such as roaming officers and shuttle services.

“I can’t say the phones are the saving grace of campus safety; there are too many other factors,” McAleer said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say that students think that because they have the phones everything’s going to be safe. Students are smarter than that.”

But while picking up a blue light phone may not be of much help to a student being robbed at gunpoint, most say the telephones serve as a more passive deterrent to potential criminals, who know that their crime will be immediately reported.

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