U. of California ‘Pauses’ Hiring of Safety Officers Until Campuses Submit ‘Holistic, Inclusive’ Plan

The University of California system (UC) is pausing the hiring of safety officers until its campuses submit a “holistic, inclusive” plan for new officers, which will shift responsibilities and funding away from the University of California Police Departments.

The hiring pause is part of the University of California’s Community Safety Plan, which also requires officers to attend regular training on “cultural competency and diversity; anti-racism, eliminating homophobia and transphobia.”

The university explains that in consultation with faculty, staff, and students, UC campuses “will develop implementation plans to create and sustain a holistic tiered response service portfolio” to outline how various personal and departments by March 2022.

“The history of policing, and the variety of views including maintaining, defunding or abolishing police departments, and making space for those ideas and solutions, will be shared and considered by campus leadership,” UC states in its Community Safety Plan.

The plan adds that “each campus will pause hiring of campus safety personnel” until a plan is submitted.

UC has ten campuses, which include, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz.

The plan — which was announced by UC President Michael Drake — must also define roles and responsibilities for not only “sworn police officers,” but also “dispatchers, crisis response team members, non-sworn public safety officers or ambassadors, mental health and social service providers, CARE advocates, and other related positions.”

The plan also tasks universities with providing “a staffing and budget plan describing how the campus will reconfigure and/or reallocate existing resources to fund and sustain the tiered response model.”

Universities must also “describe how the campus will organize and govern the tiered response model within a whole-systems infrastructure across functional units such as Student Affairs, UCPD, Student Health Centers, Title IX offices and CARE advocates, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices, and other campus support services providers.”

“This plan represents a transformational change for UC toward a more data-driven, service-oriented, community centric approach to campus safety,” Drake said in a message to the university.

“Under this new model, a multidisciplinary team of mental health professionals, campus police, social service providers, police accountability boards and other personnel will work together to prioritize the well-being of the entire UC community,” the university president continued.

“This reimagined structure will ensure that the most appropriate responders are deployed to meet our community’s specific needs with tailored care, resources and services,” Drake added. “This integrated, holistic approach to safety and security is a significant cultural shift for UC, and one that will require all of us working together with open hearts and minds.”

UC Berkeley has already released a statement on how it will put its plan into action.

“We are shifting a number of on-campus operations away from UCPD,” UC Berkeley vice chancellor for Administration Mark Fisher told Berkeley News.

“These are operations that can be categorized as non-law-enforcement activities,” Fisher added. “The moves allow us to shrink the portfolio of UCPD and reduce what might be uncomfortable contact with the department.”

The Berkley PD will no longer be handling fingerprinting, emergency operations, crime reporting, and mental health crises, reports Berkeley News.

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