Mar 28 2024 24 mins 4
Parents of students at University of California Berkeley have become so concerned about their offspring’s safety they have hired private security to secure the local vicinity.
SFGATE reports that parents were forced to take matters into their own hands amid a surge in violent crime around the UC Berkeley campus located outside of San Francisco:
Parents and community members of SafeBears, a nonprofit organization started in 2022, raised $40,000 at the end of 2023 to launch the pilot program, which started March 6 and concludes on Saturday, according to the group’s website. Six security guards from Streetplus, a third-party contractor, are patrolling five routes around the campus and the university’s residence halls on foot and by bicycle from 6:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily.
The security guards are not armed and will not enter university property, the website says, but are trained in de-escalation and CPR. They also must earn a California “guard card” from the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, requiring them to clear a background check from the California Department of Justice and FBI.
While the program will not be continuing beyond this weekend, parents hope that they will be able to convince the university to take more action.
“While we will not be extending the length of our private safety pilot beyond March 23, we will certainly continue to push the administration at UC Berkeley to do more to protect students from violence,” Sagar Jethani, president of SafeBears, told SFGATE.
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