Dunedin's controversial student quarter patrol has faced its first real voices of dissent after 18 months on the street. Debbie Porteous reports on the social experiment that is Campus Watch.
Only 18 months since it hit the streets, the man behind the University of Otago's Campus Watch group, student services director David Richardson, is already giving talks about the success of the concept to interested universities around the world.
The tale he tells his international audiences is one of unimagined success.
Meanwhile, back home in Dunedin, opinion is divided.
On the one hand, the authorities credit Campus Watch with a reduction in crime, fires, and disorderly behaviour around North Dunedin.
On the other, frustration is growing among sectors of the student population over a lack of clarity about Campus Watch's role - though even here, there is no consensus.
It would be fair to say that many students are ambivalent about the group's presence.
Campus Watch staff began patrolling North Dunedin in February 2007 as part of a range of measures introduced by the university to claw back its reputation, sullied in recent years by the disorderly behaviour of students flatting in the streets surrounding the North Dunedin campus.
The university was concerned media images shown around the world of people - who could be presumed to be Otago students - burning cars and couches and throwing bottles at police and firefighters could put not only the parents of potential students off sending their teens to Otago (about 75% of students at the university come from outside Otago), but also put off academics considering jobs at the university.
So, in January 2007, it introduced a code of conduct that outlined behaviour on and off campus that the university would find acceptable from enrolled students and gave the university proctor the power to discipline students breaching the code.
Then it established Campus Watch, a team of 40 people which patrols the university area 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Campus Watch staff were to be "walking information booths" and described as playing a "guidance role".
It is this definition of the group that causes some consternation among those meant to be "guided" by the Campus Watch team.
Even Mr Richardson struggles to find a succinct way of defining the group's role.
Part of the problem, he says, is that Campus Watch is such a radical concept, so different from a security team in the true sense.
He describes its role as providing advice on a range of issues, many associated with the transition from residential colleges to flatting, and saving students from themselves.
"They are there to stop students shooting themselves in the foot in any career-limiting move under the influence of having a good time," Mr Richardson says.
But some members of Campus Watch's flock have a different view.
Students living in the party streets of North Dunedin say they often see Campus Watch personnel helping police, reporting students to the proctor or police or, acting (as one student flatting in Castle St put it) "basically, like they are cops".
On campus, students are confused, too.
One points out that the university started out saying Campus Watch personnel were not security, "then they took the security team over, so we don't know what they are".
The first voice of dissent emerged in May this year when about 100 people "stormed" Campus Watch offices in a protest organised by the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml), concerned Campus Watch was harassing, following and alerting police to cannabis-using students.
Other students largely dismissed the protest as not representing the views of the student body as a whole.
Mr Richardson says it is unfortunate the voice of one group is heard so loudly and can influence others.
He roundly rejects any suggestion Campus Watch is the university's personal police force or even a security team.
On the face of it, there seems to be a case for saying Campus Watch has made a positive difference.
After only 18 months, there has been a significant change in behaviour in the North Dunedin student quarter.
There is less glass on the streets, taxi drivers say they will once again drive down Castle St, firefighters go to fewer fires, residents and students say they feel safer, and out-of-control student behaviour features significantly less frequently in this newspaper's columns.
Police are also represented in the chorus of approval.
Senior firefighter Robbie Torrance, from Willowbank fire station in North Dunedin, says couch fires have virtually ceased since October last year.
In each of the past three months, only five fires have been reported to the Fire Service compared with an average of 19 fires per month last year.
Mr Torrance says the Fire Service believes the change is in no small part thanks to Campus Watch staff reducing the opportunities for burning furniture, extinguishing smaller fires and reporting larger ones straight away.
"There are several reasons for [the reduction], but mainly it's the introduction of a new code of conduct issued and policed by the university that has had the desired effect."
Mr Richardson says data kept by the proctor's office backs up anecdotal evidence of a change in behaviour.
Incidents of disorderly behaviour reported by Campus Watch in February this year were nearly half those reported the previous year.
Glass-smashing incidents are "way down" compared with last year, as are fires and thefts.
The early success of Campus Watch is astounding, Mr Richardson says.
While developing the concept, he anticipated it would take five years to change the culture of couch-burning and drunken antics that had emerged among some students in North Dunedin.
"I never envisaged you could get this kind of dramatic difference in one year."
The students have mixed opinions on Campus Watch, largely depending on three factors: gender, where they live, and their first-hand experience of Campus Watch staff.
An informal survey of opinion on campus found the majority of students, outside of pro-cannabis group Norml, were barely aware of Campus Watch.
People said they saw Campus Watch staff walking around occasionally, but most did not have any interaction with them, nor see them interacting with other students.
Off campus, in the "party streets" of North Dunedin - Castle, Hyde and Clyde Sts - almost everyone seemed to have had some interaction with Campus Watch staff.
Male students spoken to said they thought the concept was good and felt their property was safer with Campus Watch around, but had concerns some Campus Watch staff thought they "have got more power than they really do".
"Some of them like to throw their weight around. Really, they're just like the cops," one Castle St resident said.
On Hyde St, one male resident said he and his flatmates thought Campus Watch staff sometimes overstepped the mark, especially when telling people how to behave inside their own flats or on their own front lawns.
Female students overwhelmingly said they "love" Campus Watch.
They felt safer walking home at night and were grateful Campus Watch kept an eye on parties and flats.
"If they weren't here we'd have the cops and that'd be a lot worse. I'd far rather deal with them than the cops."
But Otago University Students Association president Simon Wilson believes the marked improvement in student behaviour over the past year is due to an attitude change that was already on the way in - without the help of the code of conduct or Campus Watch.
"The only way behaviour was going to improve was with an attitude change and you can have all the enforcement you like. If people want to break the law, they will."
OUSA, which argued against the legality of the code of conduct with regards to policing student behaviour off campus, is keeping a "watching brief" on Campus Watch, too.
While Campus Watch's good work should not get lost in any criticism of them, students are beginning to view the group as taking more of an enforcement than an advisory role, Mr Wilson says.
"They were sold to students, and the media, as pastoral but actually they do take more of a role in enforcement. I don't really think you can do both. Either you look out for students or you're out to control students."
He receives a trickle of complaints about Campus Watch staff that, on their own, do not add up to much, but as a pattern could become concerning.
The association's position is still that the university has no right to discipline students for off-campus behaviour, and while the association is not actively questioning Campus Watch, it is keeping an eye on its activities.
Mr Richardson says that, on the whole, the university believes the student body appreciates Campus Watch - although after the "storming" of the Campus Watch offices, staff have noticed some change in the way they are treated.
"More people were mouthing off at them or not looking at them when addressed, nothing too dramatic," he says.
Campus Watch staff say, by and large, they have good relationships with students, but there are always a few who have little respect for them - usually those they have reported at some stage to the proctor.
Some Campus Watch members spoken to said they noticed change in students' attitudes towards them following Norml's May action.
"It's just like guys spouting off to us, a bit of name-calling and the fingers, that sort of thing. They definitely do that sort of stuff a bit more."
To date, the university has received only one formal complaint about Campus Watch, but that does not mean the group has been perfect, Mr Richardson says.
"They haven't.
They're humans, they had to be trained, they all come from different backgrounds and we have to deal with all those things to try and get as good a service as we can."
Staff are chosen using psychometric testing and are constantly being trained and retrained.
A small number of Campus Watch staff have been found "not suitable" for the job and have since left.
Two staff members have left to join the police.
It should not be forgotten that Campus Watch is still relatively new and its effectiveness has yet to be officially assessed, Mr Richardson says.
"We have learned so much in one year. The campus is a lot safer, but we are continuously modifying and tinkering and looking at the training we do. We will continue to do that and try and make it better."
More useful evidence of Campus Watch's impact will come in the shape of significant research being done over the next three years by a PhD student in the university's Injury Prevention Research Unit.
The Campus Watch service, which costs about $1 million (sourced from teaching and research budgets) a year will continue as long as it is successful and needed, Mr Richardson says.
"If Campus Watch put their foot in it badly and became a sort of Nazi Hitler Youth Movement, then we would pull the pin on that as fast as you can imagine.
"But equally, if it got to a point where it was like the Famous Five, or Anne of Green Gables, we'd have to reconsider our use of these resources."
