PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Temple University plans to beef up its police force, following an external study that recommends hiring more officers.
While Temple is able to provide basic police services, a safety consultant said if the university had more officers, its police force would be better able to engage with the North Philadelphia community.
Temple President John Fry said the university currently has 77 officers. It plans to add 37 more over the next five years.
Fry said security is a building block of Temple’s campus development plan, and the college will find the money to support its academic and quality-of-life goals.
“If we don’t invest in public safety, it’s going to be very hard to achieve all of those other things,” he said. “So the answer is, it’ll be hard, but it must be done.”
Fry said the Philadelphia Police Department is also providing six bike patrol officers and a sergeant starting Jan. 5.
The staffing study, by the firms Healy+ and COSECURE, was one of the recommendations from former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey’s 2023 safety audit. Temple Police Chief Jennifer Griffin said violent crime at Temple is down in recent years, and having more officers is part of an overall strategy.
“It’s just not adding more police. It’s also about leveraging technology,” she said. “We have state-of-the-art cameras. We also have artificial intelligence, license plate readers and other things that help inform our police officers.”
Griffin said she’ll work with the police union to recruit more officers.
“It’s competitive nationwide, and there’s a lot of police agencies in and around this area. So we know we’re going to have to work together,” she added.