UWI, UTech plead for better security on and off campuses

President of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Guild of Students, Christine Williams, said they have engaged the police to bring an end to the ­robbery and other acts of ­violence against university students.

The latest incident involved a hold-up and robbery of two University of Technology (UTech) female students while they were in a taxi near the UWI campus gate.

The Gleaner understands that the students were held up at ­gunpoint and robbed of an ­undetermined sum of money. They were briefly abducted and released near Hope Pastures in St Andrew.

Williams told The Gleaner that while the latest incident involved UTech students, the UWI guild was concerned.

“It happened near to our back gate and my guild is a proactive guild, so even though if it’s not my students, once its near to the gate or, overall, once the area is in Mona, Papine, Hermitage, once those areas near to the campus are proving to be unsafe, whether or not it’s my student or not, I am going to release an advisory”, Williams said.

“Me and my campus are doing all we can to secure our campus. We have been working on securing our campus. It is now becoming an equal priority on how we can secure outside of the campus. There is a limit to that because campus police don’t have any jurisdiction outside of the campus. They cannot go off campus and search any taxi ­vehicles to see if these taxis are who they say they are.”

Williams said the guild has approached the Jamaica Constabulary Force in that regard.

“We need more presence from Papine or Matilda’s Corner (police stations), whichever police ­stations are nearby, but that’s, of course, within their jurisdiction and whether or not they see the need, because the university has no jurisdiction over the police”, Williams said.

She told The Gleaner that while she got the feeling the police want to assist, there may be resource issues.

Personal safety is another aspect that Williams is trying to encourage.

“We are imploring students to also practise their own personal caution. Don’t take any taxi that is not ‘red plate’, and before you drive off, even in a red plate, ensure the drivers identification is displayed,” Williams said.

The St Andrew Central police say they have received reports of the latest incident involving university students and that the matter is being investigated.