Lax campus security
THE island’s main universities spend a combined $107 million each year to keep criminals off their campuses, but the private guards and the state-of-the-art security systems they employ do not work as effectively as they believe.
The University of the West Indies (UWI) in the capital where a lecturer was abducted two weeks ago, the neighbouring University of Technology (UTech) and the Seventh-day Adventist-run Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, all had their security systems breached by three Sunday Observer reporters who tested them over three days each last week.
The reporters not only gained access to the campuses, but were able to attend classes and use other facilities reserved for registered students.
Dressed in trendy jeans and T-shirts, the Sunday Observer reporters successfully infiltrated lectures and tutorials, participated in various political and scientific debates, shared textbooks and compared notes with students who welcomed them unquestioningly into their fold from October 24 to 26.
The relative ease with which the reporters infiltrated the classes this late into the semester exposed some serious failings in security at all three campuses.
The security system at the sprawling 653-acre UWI, Mona Campus was the easiest to breach, which was surprising as only four days earlier that institution had announced that it would be increasing security in the wake of the abduction of lecturer Dr Kingsley ‘Ragashanti’ Stewart.
A young man posing as a student abducted Stewart at gunpoint on Thursday, October 19 as Stewart walked toward his Mitsubishi Pajero in the parking lot of the Social Sciences Faculty. Stewart had just finished giving a lecture to a group of students in that department. The young man and an accomplice subsequently bound, blindfolded and forced Stewart into the trunk of another vehicle. He was eventually released unhurt.
Exactly one week later, as Stewart recounted his frightening ordeal at his Thursday lecture, he expressed concerns that somebody posing as a student could have come so close to harming him.
Said Stewart: “It really bothers me that someone can come on the campus dressed as a student and a ‘pree me’ [look at me], and watch mi movements all this time and can come to do me tings.”
Stewart’s statement made the reporter seated in the middle of the room more than a little uncomfortable, and she squirmed ever so slightly as she prepared to take flight in case she was found out.
But nobody looked her way and she quickly settled down, eventually working up enough courage to look Stewart squarely in the eyes as he spoke about the university’s poor security and the need to fix it. At this, the undercover reporter nodded her agreement vigorously, because she had lingered outside the room and patiently waited for Stewart to arrive for his 5:00 pm class.
She had looked on discreetly as he joked with the two female security guards who had escorted him inside the lecture theatre. The reporter had also observed that a male security guard had remained outside the classroom for the duration of the session.
After the class ended, she again waited around as Stewart chatted with a few students. She then followed the male guard as he escorted Stewart to a waiting van.
Again, nobody noticed her movements. In fact, during the three days that she spent on the Mona Campus, she brazenly walked by numerous security guards and entered several halls of residence; she was not asked to produce an ID; she merely went in with other students.
The reporter also used the main library, rode an off-campus bus and participated in several lectures and tutorials, and not once was she asked to produce an ID card.
She had managed to successfully infiltrate the campus four days after the university said it would be increasing foot patrols, among other measures, in the wake of the abduction.
“The campus has, effective today, adjusted the security measures within faculties. Foot patrols, which previously switched to bike patrols at 7:00 pm, have now been extended to 10:00 pm,” a statement posted on the university’s website on October 20 said.
The university, which also provides an escort service to students and staff on request, also noted that in recent months it had been “improving security lighting” and was in the process of “instituting a pilot project of surveillance cameras” in key locations on campus.
“We look forward to increased security by these and other measures and remind all users of the campus that they too have a part to play in minimising risks to their person and in reporting any breaches of security,” the statement said.
At the NCU campus, another reporter managed to get by the security at the main gate on numerous occasions without being asked to produce a student ID card, even though one is mandatory.
Over the three days, she attended a number of classes, wandered aimlessly around the campus, idled in department lounges and visited the library. She attended a ‘Honours Convocation’ ceremony last Thursday to recognise students who had made the honour roll.
She even attempted to infiltrate Cedar Hall, the male dormitory, but got cold feet after entering what appeared to be a recreational hall. She had no luck trying to gain access to the female dorms.
No one – apart from a few students who knew the reporter personally – thought to ask her whether she was enrolled there. And even those people who knew her never pressed her to find out what courses she was enrolled in.
Only one female student asked the reporter on Tuesday whether she was enrolled in an Intermediate Financial Management class, but even then the student did not raise an alarm.
On the first day that our undercover male reporter randomly sauntered into a classroom at UTech, he was promptly asked by a student for the date of an apparent upcoming exam. Halfway through the lecture, another student asked him whether the topic was covered in the course textbook. The students were clueless, in more ways than one.
He also managed to enter the library by telling the security guard that he had forgotten his student ID.
However, his attempts to gain access to the all-female Amy Jacques Garvey Hall was thwarted as the security there was tight; he needed a swipe card to get through the hall’s only entrance.
A few seconds later, he walked freely into the all-male Farquarson Hall by following closely behind a group of students who had just used their swipe cards to enter the hall. They never once turned around to see who was following them.
(Read full feature on security spending in today’s online edition. Read how Sunday Observer reporters managed to breach security systems at the UWI, NCU and UTech with ease)