Correction: A previous version of this article stated that UOPD does not have a case review board. That is inaccurate. The department Complaint Review Committee meets quarterly. The previous edition also stated that CSOs received no mental health intervention training. This is also inaccurate. They receive ten hours of classroom instruction and take part in a three-day course on crisis intervention.
You may soon see more police on campus, yet they will assure you they are different from “normal” cops. They are community safety officers; the ballistic vest is underneath the polo.
CSOs are still cops, yes unarmed and less trained, but they still report to the University of Oregon Police Department. Moreover, they serve the department’s interests in more intensely policing our campus.
This change is not a positive shift within law enforcement to adapt to discontent with police as an institution. It’s nothing but a performative bait-and-switch to feign community accountability. CSOs mimic a progressive change in the justice system while increasing their surveillance and control over campus.
UO has only had a dedicated police department for a single decade, and its officers were not armed until 2013. Yet community safety officers have existed in name since the force’s inception in 2011. But the program’s recent evolution came when UO President Michael Schill refused to disarm UOPD officers in November of 2020, despite fierce anti-police sentiments during the George Floyd protests. The university hoped this would signal acknowledgement of discontent with promises of “community outreach and engagement.”
UOPD Chief Matthew Carmichael is adamant that these officers will adapt to the needs of the community.
“We have demonstrated nothing but care and compassion for community members in crisis,” Carmichael said, adding that he believes CSOs demonstrate a “soft-approach” to policing.
This change reduces the 26 full-time armed officers to 19 on campus, but adds 12 full-time and one part-time CSOs for an increase to 32 total officers, according to the chief.
Despite UOPD’s numbers, it still does not possess the necessary training nor resources to meet the community’s needs. As such, CSOs are not designed to succeed, nor fail. Rather they will simply apathetically exist as a permanent rhetorical doorstop proving that UOPD does pretend to care about and listen to the community.
Sociology Professor Claire Herbert fears this change is a nominal shift and cannot deal with issues of social work like mental health crises.
“Police are increasingly militarized, yet we often turn to them, as they are the only point of authority people have in everyday life,” Herbert said. “But police officers are sorely undertrained in that arena, to implement restorative justice in daily interactions.”
If authority cannot challenge the systemic problems with policing, they are nothing more than “street-level bureaucrats,” Herbert said.
Day-to-day these CSOs serve no real new obligations. If anything, many of their duties are explicitly make-work, from parking enforcement to securing porch deliveries. The only new duty is to ambiguously engage with the community through nondescript activities like event tabling and movie nights.
Yet, to do these rigorous duties you only need a high school diploma and an ambiguous “one year communicating with the public,” according to the job application. Because at the end of the day, you are still a cop; you still enforce laws, you still work for UOPD.
Cat Kelly of CopsOffCampusUO is correct in their assessment that CSOs are an extension of UOPD’s policing ability.
“It’s a rebranding without structural change that increases the power of UOPD while claiming to listen to the community,” Kelly said. “CSOs are still cops, but now less identifiable.”
So what problems can CSOs actually solve? A couple days of mental health response training is a band-aid if police forces can never address the systemic issues that cause such breakdowns. UOPD has a case review board, but it is not subject to Oregon’s public meeting law, so the committee can choose what information is available to the public. Further, I haven’t found any public information indicating that the committee has ever never convened a use of force review board despite UOPD using force 25 times since 2018.
What alternative is there to policing? Clearly we need one that actually centers community needs and properly responds to instances of mental crisis through a lens that acknowledges structural harms.
Eugene-based CAHOOTS gives the model for a grassroots organization that is trained to respond to issues that a cop, unarmed or not, could never solve. Instead, a community-run safety response team trained to provide mental health support would ensure a non-violent resolution to issues the presence of an officer may provoke. However, CAHOOTS is currently limited by its connection to the Eugene Police Department, leaving it underfunded and understaffed.
It is necessary to untangle law enforcement from social work and assistance if we are to address the underlying issues. For if we as a community truly care about crime reduction — not just crime punishment — our actions need to be preventative, not reactive.
Resources for food, shelter and mental health care across Eugene would actually address the reasons for crime. Police, including CSOs, will always be a reactive force. It does not matter if they have a gun or not; they will never solve the problem.
Unfortunately, until the true cause of crime is dealt with, UO can justify a security force, but that authority can never solve the underlying issues facing our community.