SafeBears gets a behind-the-scenes safety tour at USC ⚔️

SafeBears at USC

Last week (May 2023), SafeBears was given an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how the University of Southern California (USC) keeps students safe.

It made a huge impression on us.

Seven Cal parents met with DPS Chief Loretta Hill, UCLA Interim Chief John Thomas, SVP David Wright, and other senior DPS members for nearly 3 hours at USC.

Here’s what we learned

2012 was a pivotal year

USC is located in South Central, just south of downtown LA. South Central has a reputation of being a rough part of town. So how did USC build what many consider to be the best campus safety organization in the country?

It goes back to 2012, which was a difficult year for the university. Two international students were murdered, and months later several students were hospitalized when a gun battle broke out on campus. Then-president Max Nikias assembled his security chiefs and asked them to build a plan that would prevent such violence from ever happening again in and around campus.

The plan they created included the installation of over 400 security cameras across campus, with video feeds going into a central monitoring center.

USC’s Video Monitoring Center

Trained surveillance personnel view these realtime feeds to stop crimes before they happen. The year before the cameras were installed, USC was struggling with over 200 burglaries a year. The year after the cameras were installed the number dropped to zero.

They also expanded their popular Security Ambassador program, more commonly known as…

Yellow Jackets

In 2009, USC started what is probably the most recognizable part of its safety program, Security Ambassadors, or Yellow Jackets. These are part-time security personnel who wear bright yellow vests and are deployed on and around campus.

Yellow jackets provide a visible security presence to all members of the community. They are all equipped with radios, so they can immediately alert DPS when a situation arises which requires their help. Yixuan Chen wrote about the Yellow Jackets in 2021. A Security Ambassador named Zaire Brown explained her work to him:

“We guard the perimeter of the campus and we have some who guard the student housing is off-campus to make sure that students are safely going to and from school and also going safely to work to home to the house. And my job is to secure this gate right here.”

Shift supervisor Shannon Fields described the Yellow Jackets’ relationship to the official campus safety force, DPS:

“If they come to us and say hey, I’m hurt, and I can’t get there. We’ll use our radios to say. DPS, we have this student here that can’t get to the other side of campus. Can you come in assist? So basically, we’re just helpers of DPS.”

The university hires residents from the local community to fill these roles whenever possible, so not only is USC creating a safer environment— it’s also creating jobs. Students love Yellow Jackets and know many of them by name. And if you wondered whether USC parents had anything to do with this incredible program, you’re spot on.

“We would not have the Yellow Jackets program without parents,” UCLA Interim Chief John Thomas told us. (Until recently, Thomas was DPS Chief at USC.)

Secure residence halls

All student residence halls are secured with keycard-enabled access, and private security guards are stationed at the base of each building between sundown and 6 AM. The university even had fingerprint scanners in place for a while to assist students who may have misplaced their ID cards.

Basic access control system— the kind we need at Units 1, 2 & 3

We’ve been calling on UC Berkeley to construct security fences around the residence halls which have been repeatedly breached by dangerous intruders. Installing an access control system will make an immediate improvement for student safety, and we need your help!

Free Lyft rides after dark

USC offers students free Lyft rides after dark provided those rides start & stop within a specific proximity to campus. SafeBears is pushing the administration to implement a similar ridesharing program at UC Berkeley to keep students safe at night. We met with several administration members last week and asked them to have a pilot program in place this fall.

For details on USC’s Lyft program, click here.

Eyes on the prize

SafeBears is deeply grateful to the leadership team at USC for meeting with us and showing us the many ways it keeps its urban campus safe for all. We look forward to sharing these ideas with members of the Cal administration as we work towards a safer Cal for our students.