New BUPD Chief Brings a Public Health Approach to His Role
Robert Lowe talks about people in crisis, dorm security—and a comfort dog
BUPD Chief Robert Lowe wants to try new approaches with people in crisis: “We are not going to arrest our way out of quality of life issues.”
New BUPD Chief Brings a Public Health Approach to His Role
Robert Lowe talks about people in crisis, dorm security—and a comfort dog
Robert Lowe started work as the new chief of the Boston University Police Department two months ago with a commitment to transparency and inclusion and building strong ties to the community.
He has the academic bona fides for it; Lowe earned a doctorate in education from NYU Steinhardt this year with a dissertation titled “Reducing the Influence of Implicit Bias in a Municipal Police Department.” His predecessor, Kelly Nee, now BU’s chief safety, security, and preparedness officer, says, “He is part of the next generation of police leaders.”
Lowe started his career as a campus police officer at Suffolk University. Before coming to BU, he served 22 years with the police department across the river in his hometown of Cambridge, most recently as superintendent of the Operations Division. At BUPD, he now oversees nearly 60 detectives, officers, and command, supervisory, and administrative staff, as well as the 50 professionals who are responsible for Medical Campus Public Safety and security at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL).
Now that he has a few weeks on the job under his belt, we asked him to talk about how the role of the department is changing and what he’ll do about some of the specific challenges he faces.
Q&A
with Robert Lowe
BU Today: When you arrived, your predecessor, Kelly Nee, said the expectations of communities from their police have changed. Do you think there’s been a fundamental change? What are communities looking for?
Lowe: I think the expectations have changed somewhat, in terms of providing safety in the community in a way that has more of a public health approach. So when we talk about the unsheltered community, mental health challenges, understand that we’re not going to criminalize someone for having a mental health issue. I think the expectation is, how do we support our community in the best ways, understanding that we’re not going to arrest our way out of quality of life issues. I think also the law enforcement profession has recognized that it doesn’t do anyone any benefit. And so, then, how can we think of it with a public health lens, so that we can connect that person to services versus introducing them into the criminal justice system?
BU Today: Some communities are experimenting with a different way of approaching that, where mental health folks join or replace first responders on those sorts of calls. Is that something you’re considering?
Lowe: At this moment, we’re exploring alternative responses to mental health calls. And in doing that—this goes back to Kelly Nee and the work she has already done on it—one of the initiatives that we’re looking at is a comfort dog here on campus. A comfort dog would primarily be used to increase opportunities to engage with our community and support community members who may be experiencing anxiety or stress.
We’re also thinking about exploring the uniforms that some of our offices are wearing. We know that sometimes the police uniform can act as a barrier with certain communities. And so we have a soft approach, to include a soft uniform, something that looks a little different than what we’re wearing now, that can have a de-escalating impact as officers are responding when people are falling into crisis.
Those are just a couple of initiatives that we’re exploring. And just making sure that our officers have all the training and support resources that they need to be effective in those moments.
BU Today: Are there initiatives you’re instigating to bring your background in diversity and inclusion issues into the BUPD?
Lowe: Absolutely. One of the projects that I worked on in my previous role was on thinking about ways that we can improve police officers’ attitudes towards diversity training. And so we led a project in collaboration with another university, locally, doing exactly that. And one of the things that we learned when we studied the data was that when the presentation is rooted in science, and it’s delivered in an objective way, that the officers respond really well to that presentation. So one of the things we’re thinking about is a project like that on campus.
BU Today: Boston’s Mass and Cass tent city, where many intravenous drug users are living, affects people on the Medical Campus. How involved are you in dealing with that situation?
Lowe: So, the Boston Police and the Boston University Police Department are in frequent communication in terms of the challenges around Mass and Cass. One of the things that I implemented early on was increasing visibility down at the Medical Campus, because although we recognize that the solution may take some time, there are immediate steps we need to take to make our faculty, students, staff, and patients feel comfortable in that area. And so we increased our visibility to do that. And again, we’re in frequent contact with public health professionals, the Boston Police Department. I’m scheduled—along with my leadership team—to meet with the Boston Police to discuss this specific issue. So it’s a conversation that we’re having very often. We want to make sure that our community stakeholders feel safe when they’re on the Medical Campus.
Boston’s a safe city, Boston University is a safe campus, but we also want people to be educated on how to best keep themselves safe.
BU Today: Last year a person not affiliated with BU gained access to one of the student residences and died by suicide jumping from a window. A number of students witnessed parts of this event, and there was a lot of concern about campus safety in the aftermath.
We are making sure that when critical incidents happen on campus, we are communicating with our community and making sure that everyone involved has the information that they need, and also making sure that we’re looking at building access and other security protocols as appropriate. I’m still in the process of reviewing all that work. And one of the initiatives I’m really proud of is the SAFE (Safety Awareness for Everyone) resource that just was released. This is an initiative that helps educate our community around threats that may appear on campus. It’s a great critical piece to that on education and prevention of threats on campus. And so we encourage our students, faculty, and staff to go online, access the video; it’s interactive, you can take a test. And we think it’s a really great way to keep our community informed in terms of how to keep themselves safe.
BU Today: The particular concern a lot of students had after that incident was unauthorized people in the dorms. And if I heard you correctly, you are looking at dorm access?
Correct. So we’ll be reviewing policy in terms of building access and making sure staff understand the challenges that come around that, in terms of, you know, people piggybacking into dorms, or other buildings on campus. And so we are reviewing all those protocols. We are making sure that staff have all the resources that they need to make sure that they’re preventing individuals from getting into places where they don’t belong.
BU Today: Drink spiking has been a topic of conversation in the city. What advice do you have for students on that subject?
Drink spiking is a concern right now. Some of the recommendations would be, never leave your drink alone and don’t take a drink from someone that you don’t know. We’re not seeing an unusual increase in incidents here on campus, but it’s important for us to have a conversation in terms of personal safety. So if people are out late at night, you know, maybe they can be in groups versus walking at night by themselves. Not having both AirPods in, maybe not being so focused on your phone that you’re not aware of your surroundings. Boston’s a safe city, Boston University is a safe campus, but we also want people to be educated on how to best keep themselves safe.
BU Today: Amid our country’s divided politics and the coming election, there may be an increase in controversial speakers and events on campus. How do you handle those?
People have a right to express themselves. And we want to support that, right? Just making sure that when people are doing that, they’re not hurting anyone or damaging any property. But outside of that, we want to be there to support events that happen on campus, making sure that everyone is safe and feels safe to express their views and viewpoints.
BU Today: Another recurring problem is scams, targeting especially international students, whether it’s at an ATM, or whether it’s stopping them for “bus fare,” or whatever. Are there any particular initiatives around that?
We’ve done a lot of work early in the semester and during Orientation, meeting with different groups in the community to provide them with awareness and education around the scams. We’ve done a lot of different preventive work. And so it’s just really building on that work to make sure, particularly around our international students, that they know what to look out for and what to expect. And we’ll continue to do that. But we haven’t seen an unusual increase of scams at this point.
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