College Parties

Now that we are well into the school year I wanted to touch base on our community policing efforts regarding college parties.  As UMD grew so did the number of college parties.  Beginning in the 1990’s college parties began to take up more and more police resources.  As we rolled into the 2000’s it became common that there were so many reported parties that officers frequently were not able to get to all of them.  Five years ago the college parties and neighborhood problems were receiving a lot of media attention and it began to reflect poorly on our City.  Neighbors were frustrated, police were frustrated and things only seemed to be getting worse.  Through hard work and collaboration we have had tremendous success in reducing the number of party calls in our college neighborhoods over the last few years.  An effective and strong partnership with UMD, new and tougher housing ordinances, landlord e-mail notification, improved resource allocation, effective enforcement and follow-up the number of party calls have plummeted.  During September 2007 we responded to 124 party calls in neighborhoods around UMD.  During the first four weeks of college this year we responded to just 61 party calls.  That is over a 50% reduction in party calls.  A special thanks to UMD, the Campus Neighbors Group, our hard working officers, Lieutenant Eric Rish, and all the others who have worked in collaboration with us to reduce parties and improve our great neighborhoods.