Divisions Between USC and South Central Los Angeles: Impacts of Campus Safety Policy Measures

While USC is located within Los Angeles, can it truly be considered part of the city? Universities play direct and indirect roles in othering the communities that they are in. While many elements factor into this sense of othering, campus safety measures can be both a visual and immaterial deterrent contributing to divides between universities and communities. This project focuses on how historic and current campus safety measures such as DPS and gating impact the surrounding communities of South Central Los Angeles. As the majority of USC students are not from Los Angeles, with the general impression that the surrounding communities are unsafe, they likely don’t know the impact of USC’s safety measures on the neighborhood. We aim to better understand these effects through mapping DPS stations and patrol routes, searching through current perspectives on both USC’s safety policies and those of universities in general, and through interviews. As people affiliated with USC, we have a responsibility to be cognizant of the functions of the university within the city.