The University Police department has hired six new officers to patrol Northwestern’s Evanston Campus, increasing their field presence to a total of 23.

The six additions will fill three vacancies in the force as well as three new positions recently created by NU administration. It is the largest single UP staff increase in at least the last eight years, during which time the department has often run undermanned by up to five officers, said Eugene Sunshine, NU senior vice president for business and finance.

“It’ll help us to be more visible, and hopefully people (will) enjoy the service,” said Assistant Chief Dan McAleer of UP. “All of the people that we’ve chosen have the proper rapport to deal with a college environment and I believe are genuinely excited about joining our organization.”

The new recruits will enter the force as entry-level officers, giving UP extra leeway in their patrol routes and a chance to enhance its problem-oriented policing team, which is currently functioning with three out of a possible five officers.

The decision to expand UP was made during the spate of armed robberies on campus in 2003, when the understaffed department found itself strapped to combat the criminal activity.

“We got to the point where we had to deploy everyone on 12-hour shifts until we made some arrests and brought the robberies under control,” McAleer said.

After a study by NU’s Center for Public Safety concluded that the department was low on manpower, the Budget Planning Committee approved a plan to add three new UP positions. Before expanding the force, however, UP needed to fill its vacant spots, a process that has taken a little more than a year.

In recent years, UP has run at a vacancy rate usually between four and five officers, Sunshine said. Last year, an analysis of UP’s salary plan found it lagged far behind departments in surrounding suburbs. The low salaries were leading to difficulties in retaining experienced officers, who would leave after four or five years on the force to accept positions at departments where they could earn thousands of dollars more, McAleer said.

To reduce the high turnover-rate, NU has adjusted its compensation plan for UP. Effective this month, it will increase entry-level salaries, merit pay and the salary differential between officers, sergeants and lieutenants in order to encourage employees to assume leadership positions.

“Filling new positions doesn’t help if you’re still running a large turnover rate,” Sunshine said. “Now we’re running at full steam. And although you’re always going to have a vacancy, there’s a big difference between one or two vacancies and four or five.”

NU students reacted coolly to the news.

“I suppose they’re going to break up more parties,” said McCormick senior Luke Anderson, adding that he believes students would rather have police adjust their priorities to focus more on student safety than to simply increase their numbers.

“I think students wanted the police to pay more attention to that sort of aspect than just hassling kids,” Anderson said.

Visiting Tulane junior Nate Usrey said he was surprised by the lack of police presence on campus.

“I don’t feel particularly unsafe, but the ones I’ve seen have been outside of frat parties breaking them up,” he said. “On my campus, you’ll see them all over the place.”

Reach Jordan Weissmann at [email protected].