NCJ Number
156205
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 62 Issue: 7 Dated: (July 1995) Pages: 20-27
Date Published
1995
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Crime prevention strategies for mass transit systems are discussed.
Abstract
Part of a two-year study of transit police and security deployment practices funded by the National Academy of Science's Transit Cooperative Research Program, this article reviews strategies employed to safeguard passengers, employees, property, and parking lots at rail and bus transit agencies across the country. Public transit policing's roots are traced briefly from 1859 to the present. Uniformed patrol is cited as the most common tactic on rail systems, followed by plainclothes observation on rail and bus systems. The variety of assignments within these patrols is considered. Activities of the 215-member Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Police Department are discussed as examples of a typical rail police department. Also included in the discussion are the activities of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), including SEPTA's experiment with zone policing, Atlanta's MARTA Division of Police Services, Washington's WMATA Metro Transit Police and the Harris County, Houston, Metropolitan Transit Authority. Dallas' DART and Cleveland's RTA are offered as examples of agencies with their own police officers that also rely on local police or contract security personnel. Other cooperative efforts are noted. Bus-riding crime prevention tactics including surveillance devices, communications systems, and emergency message boards are identified as useful crime prevention tools. Special problems confronting transit police are reviewed. A one-page related article regarding surveillance technologies used by transit systems, authored by Susan Gilbert, President of Interactive Elements, Inc., New York, is included in the body of the article. Footnotes