Most people living on Denison’s campus do not think about the Granville Police Department unless they get into the worst kind of trouble, or are noticing the irony that Taco Dan’s is situated right next to the station.
The officers work down the hill and rarely venture into our living space. However, those who have attended Denison for some time may be aware that there’s an ongoing relationship between the GPD and the school’s Office of Campus Safety. This relationship is defined through a resolution passed July 15, 2009 by the Village of Granville Council.
In certain cases, Campus Safety officers have handed students off to the local police department and vice versa. We feel that since the relationship between these two departments affects Denisonians, it deserves some investigating.
The paper plans on consulting with Chief Hect of the Office of Campus Safety as well as the Granville Police Department to learn more about the circumstances that lead to these two organizations interacting and what points of contact exist between them.
In addition to information from both departments, we foresee that it will be necessary to request records of incident reports from the Office of Campus Safety. Discussions about the Campus Climate Watch have been published in The Denisonian before, and we acknowledge that there are some reports that any student can access at any time. However, it is clear that many incidents are either not posted on Campus Climate Watch, or are posted well after the events occurred.
We request police reports from the Granville Police Department every few weeks, and they are readily available. Under the Section 1713.50 of the Ohio Revised Code, Denison Campus Safety is a campus police agency. Just as the GPD provides records, Campus Safety should as well.