About half of those employed by PSAFE are sworn police officers, detectives, sergeants, etc., who hold the same powers as municipal or state police and whose policing powers extend to Princeton township. Yet, as private employees, PSAFE officers are only accountable to the University administration, which is not beholden to the interests of the Princeton municipal community. In April 2019, a campus officer at Yale shot a community member while investigating a reported armed robbery. The Yale officer was suspended for 30 days, and later returned to work as an administrator. While we do not know if a similar abuse of power has happened at Princeton yet, the jurisdiction of our armed P-Safe officers also extends to the surrounding community, creating the conditions that allow for such violent interactions with community members.  As long as the University employs sworn police officers with similar authority to detain and use force against our students, staff, and local community as local police officers, the University is not only complicit in, but actively contributing to the racist institution of policing in this country. 

PANEL: “SAFETY IS NOT SURVEILLANCE: ADDRESSING CARCERAL CAPTURE AS A RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY NEEDS”

February 20, 2025

Amidst the uptick of scrutinous surveillance methods on Princeton's campus, SPEAR’s PSAP Committee hosted "Safety is not Surveillance: Addressing Carceral Capture as a Response to Community Needs," a panel centered around spreading awareness and facilitating dialogue about alternatives to surveillance methods, implications of intrusive surveillance and carceral capture methods, AI surveillance (such as ShotSpotter), and mitigating police violence in response to surveillance methods. The panel consisted of speakers that ranged from social justice activists, attorneys at the ACLU of New Jersey, professors at Princeton, and more, and was an engaging and insightful conversation that shed light on the future of surveillance and police violence on Princeton's campus and beyond.