Actual arrests, however, are rare. The University Police approach their duties with a flexibility impossible in a professional agency of law enforcement. Officers always warn offenders before taking more serious action.

And the University Police rarely get their man. To begin with, on campus crimes are usually of the petty and chronic variety that defies solution--stolen pocket-books (100 percent carelessness, Tonis affirms) and in the spring, bicycles. But most important, a campus-bound security force simply lacks the time, men, and training to do serious police work. Even Walsh, despite his clothing, does little real snooping. "He is not," Tonis admits with a trace of a smile, "like a James Bond or a private eye."

Tonis and his men consider their role in student discipline a minor one, and they approach it with restraint. "We try to say yes," says Tonis. "We don't often say no."

Of course sometimes the "no" is inevitable. Tonis has a healthy dread of the legendary "spring riot," and more bursar's cards numbers are taken at such gatherings than anywhere else (contrary to popular myth, the police rarely take cards, since numbers are enough to identify students).

But in other areas, the police are more flexible. Students and police most often rub shoulders over parking problems, and students are allowed just two warnings and four tickets (one five dollars, the next three ten dollars) before their violations are reported to the administration, an action which may bring loss of driving privileges. The police, however, give out tickets only on Harvard University property, not on Cambridge streets; and even then, says Tonis, "You should be able to talk'em out of it. They're not out to get you. They don't get brownie points for tags."

Police patrol outside of buildings, entering only for emergencies or to quiet unruly students. They discover parietal violations by seeing students leaving with dates after hours, not through pass-key espionage. There is no regular surveillance of final lubs or societies, and there are no definite rules saying when police should intervene in student affairs. Officers use their own discretion.

The Police take absolutely no part in administering punishment to students. Names of students offenders are handed immediately to Dean Monro or Dean Von Staade, and the matter then passes out of Police hands. Though officers must record any serious problems in the daily reports which form the police log, the Police keep no files on students or student offenders.

But there is also a much more positive side to police-student relations. The force serves as an effective buffer between students and the Cambridge police, who have the authority to enter the University but "out of courtesy" leave Harvard to the University Police. Cambridge authorities will often hand drunken students wandering in the Square to the University cops, rather than let them spend the night in jail. And with University Police handling student demonstrations, students get much more flexible supervision than the Cambridge police would provide.

On occasion (most often during spring riots) campus police will request Cambridge help. The Cambridge police answer the call, but both parties regard such intervention as a courtesy service rather than an assertion of authority. University cops just as frequently help out their Cambridge counterparts. Last Thanksgiving, eight University policemen battled high-school rioters in the Square when Cambridge Police found themselves undermanned. "We have a good working relationship," says Tonis. "They can help us and we can help them."

The University Police also provide students with personal and unofficial services. Dean Monro often sends students in trouble to Chief Tonis, whose law degree enables him to serve as "a semi-legal authority." And one senior remembers when his wallet was stolen on a Saturday night his Freshman year. The policeman on duty asked him if he had a date, and when the student replied that he did and had no money, the officer lent him ten dollars and told him "to bring it back sometime.