New lockout policy decreases help calls

The number of lockouts reported to the Department of Public Safety has declined dramatically since the implementation of a new policy that fines students for calling Public Safety to be let back into their rooms after business hours.

Between Sept. 15 and Dec. 15, 2011, Public Safety received 2,678 lockout service requests, a 37 percent decline from the 4,277 it received during the same period in 2010, before the new policy was announced.

Under the new policy, which The Daily Princetonian first reported on March 23, students who call Public Safety after business hours and on weekends with lockout requests are fined $30. During business hours, students are expected to visit the Housing and Real Estate Services office to obtain a temporary key.

Students are fined $75, which includes noncompliance fees, if they do not return this key within 24 hours and an additional $75 for a lock change if they do not return the key within two weeks. Additionally, students are billed $30 for lockout requests to borrow keys from Housing beginning with the fourth request. So far this year, three students have been billed for this violation.

The decline in students visiting the Housing office for a replacement key has been less pronounced, with 443 students obtaining replacement keys between Sept. 15 and Dec. 13, compared to 517 in the same period last year.

“The new lockout policy was successfully implemented this fall, and there has been a decline in the number of students making lockout re-entry service requests,” University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said in an email. “The policy was developed through collaboration between Housing and Real Estate Services and the Department of Public Safety, and the goal was to reduce the number of lockout re-entry service requests and the time spent by Public Safety responding to lockouts.”

A grace period was in place between Aug. 15 and Sept. 30 — as it will be every year — so students who called for lockout assistance between these dates were not fined. The grace period is also in place during fire drills.

Since Oct. 1, when the grace period ended, Public Safety received 1,386 lockout requests, a 44 percent decline from the 2,461 last year. Therefore, assuming that all the students who were fined have paid, the University has collected $41,680 from calls to Public Safety, which Mbugua said goes to Princeton’s “general fund.”

The policy has succeeded in one of its initial goals of freeing up time for Public Safety officers to perform their other duties, according to Mbugua. Based on the estimate that each lockout request takes 30 minutes for a Public Safety officer to complete, the reduction in lockout requests has saved Public Safety officers about 800 hours, which Mbugua said “provides more time for patrols and other safety activities.”

According to a sample of lockout calls made to Housing during business hours provided by Mbugua, there is no correlation between type of residence — single, double, triple, quad or suite — and likelihood of being locked out.

The sample shows that of first-time temporary key requests made to housing, 129 came from quads, 119 came from singles, 62 came from doubles, 25 came from triples and 11 came from suites. Eighteen second-time lockouts came from singles and 11 from quads.

This data suggests that students in singles are not any more likely to be fined than students with roommates. The sample contains 391 of the 517 calls made to Housing, and no such breakdown was made available regarding the 2,678 calls made to Public Safety so far this year.

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Mbugua said he could not secure the answer as to why the other 126 were not included by the time of publication.

Additionally, Mbugua said he has not yet been able to compile and break down data by residential college or halls. Though the University does have this data, Mbugua said it is not compartmentalized by residence and would thus not be easily readable at a glance.

Mbugua noted that 60 percent of residential doors are already self-locking, but students who live in some older buildings that have not recently been renovated have the option of leaving their doors unlocked. Students who live in these dorms could potentially avoid paying fines by leaving their doors unlocked.

However, the University is taking steps to replace these locks with automatic locks. According to an email sent out to residents of Butler and Wilson Colleges on Dec. 9, Princeton and Hogan Security workers will begin replacing old locks with automatically locking ones.

“I’m in favor of it,” Amy Li ’14, chair of the Wilson College Council, said. “The con is that you can’t unlock your doors, which will be an issue, but [it] will get you into the habit of taking your key with you.”

Li cited the recent robbery that took place in Feinberg Hall as an example of the benefits of ensuring that doors are locked at all times.

Additionally, the email announced that by next year the University will be on a keyless system, by which all doors are automatically locking and require a prox and a PIN to gain entry.

“The benefits of the new system are increased safety, security, accessibility, savings, efficiency, better use of resources and technology and the convenience of not having to carry a key in addition to a TigerCard,” Mbugua said.