Approximately four weeks ago, when Harvard detectives stopped a suspect for stealing wallets near Harvard's athletic facilities, they received a somewhat an unusual admission of guilt.

"The suspect told us that because of the new card key system in the Yard, he had to move his trade to the athletic facilities," says Sgt. Lawrence J. Fennelly, the Harvard officer in charge of crime prevention.

With Cambridge crime on the rise and the College searching for new ways to protect its students, officials looked for a solution by installing an electronic card key system in the first-year dormitories and 29 Garden St.

The card keys, to be installed in all of the College's residential houses, raised questions of Harvard's ability to restrict students' access to dorms electronically.

Jewish students who observe religious laws forbidding the use of electricity during the Sabbath have expressed concern about having to use electronic keys.

In addition, students have worried that key card entry data could be used as circumstantial evidence by the College's Administrative Board against students in disciplinary proceedings.

And if student concerns weren't enough, the College was also left to contend with system sabotage, exemplified last fall by vandals who damaged a card key validator by filling it with glue.

So Par a Success

Despite these concerns, Harvard police say the card keys have stemmed the number of break-ins at first-year dorms. "My instinct is to say that crimes have gone down," says Harvard police Lt. Charles Schwab.

"[The system] is reducing crime," says Fennelly. "I'd project that crime in the last nine months is less than the previous school year. In the summer we'll do a study to see what the figures look like."

Acting Director of the Office of Physical Resources Michael N. Lichten says Harvard police had conducted a limited study of the effect of the card keys in the Union dorms. "The number of incidents dropped," Lichten says.

Card Keys In the Houses

The University may install the card key system at three of the College's residential houses as early as this summer, Lichten says. "We're investigating the technical issues and getting prices in," he says. The houses currently under examination are North, Quincy and Mather, according to Lichten.

The University's new multipurpose identification cards, which will be issued next fall, could facilitate the use of the card key system at the houses. The new student IDs will harness state-of-the-art magnetic strips compatible with the electronic access system.

Under the current system, a computer in the Yard superintendent's office records the time of use, location of entrance and owner of the card key every time a student enters a door. The information is stored by the University in a computer database and erased one month later.

More importantly, because the cards are individually coded, the University can regulate when and if a student's card can open a specific door. The cards have been used 67,000 times per week in the Yard, according to University officials.