By Julia Mericle
Staff Writer
In honor of October as Crime Prevention Month, the Office of Safety and Security at St. Bonaventure University has recently employed a new crime-prevention initiative.
The purpose of the initiative is to ensure the safety of student’s personal belongings on campus.
Director of Safety and Security Vito Czyz urged students to remember basic safety and security rules, such as locking their doors and to avoid leaving valuable items out in the open where they can be easily taken.
However, Czyz said the main feature of the crime prevention initiative is a system of identifying stolen property. The system consists of an ultraviolet (UV) marker and an ultraviolet or “blue” flashlight.
The property has a number drawn on it that is invisible unless under the shine of the “blue” light. Once the number is discovered, the owner of the property will be identified and informed.
Laptops and smartphones are among the most popular items that Safety and Security urges students to have marked. However, students are not limited to these items and can have other items they deem of high value tagged and added to the database.
“We put the number on the piece of property in a location that not everyone would check or see,” Czyz said.
This system, as he explained, is simpler and easier than the previous method, which required large machinery to engrave valuable items.
Security officers Bill Hilliard and Jason Geise represented St. Bonaventure University at a crime prevention course this past summer, where they got the idea for the new system.
“It’s a really good program. It’s simple. You get the flashlight. You get the pen. It’s good to go,” Hilliard said.
Hilliard encouraged students to take advantage of this preventative measure with their items.
“Anything that is of big value to them, they should bring it down, and we can put it in our database in case it ever comes up missing,” Hilliard said.
The Safety and Security officers also have an agreement with the local pawnshops. If anything suspicious ever turns up at one of the shops, officers are called upon to check the items with the ultraviolet flashlight. In the case that they find a number on the item, the officers know they are handling stolen property and can safely return the item to its owner and handle the offender appropriately.
This system was recently introduced at Columbia University in New York City. It has proven successful and helpful to students there. Hilliard explained that it had about an 80 percent rate of stolen or lost items being returned to the proper owners.
Students think that this plan will help prevent future problems with valuable belongings on campus. Emily Jo Manchester, a sophomore Spanish major, said that this initiative will benefit students.
“I’m guilty of leaving my phone and laptop without supervision in the dining hall and Cafe La Verna all the time,” Manchester said. “If my phone had a marking on it that could help Safety and Security identify my phone, I wouldn’t worry about leaving my phone around campus.”
Safety and Security has already tagged all of its radios and officers have tagged their own valuables.
“We’re getting stuff marked slowly but surely,” Czyz said. “So far, we have around 30 items that have been marked and we hope to increase that number.”
Czyz said he plans to continue spreading the word about the initiative and will speak to students at Jamestown Community College next Monday about crime prevention techniques.
mericlejm13@bonaventure.edu
