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In addition to local, county, and state law enforcement agencies, there are approximately 1,700 other public law enforcement agencies in the United States that have special jurisdictions. In total, these agencies employ about 57,000 sworn personnel. The largest share of these agencies, about 750, consists of campus police departments serving colleges and universities.³⁵ For perspective, the largest university police department is Georgia State University (Atlanta), which has 126 sworn personnel (see Table 3.2).

Photo 3.5 There are about 750 college and university police departments in the United States that seek to ensure the safety of students, staff, and faculty.

©iStockphoto.com/sshepard

On most campuses, the police have arrest powers not only on campus but in areas adjacent to campus and property outside the area adjacent to campus.³⁶ The overwhelming majority of campus police departments provide twenty-four-hour patrol coverage. About one-half of agencies serving public campuses use student patrols compared to about one-third of agencies that serve private campuses.³⁷ Most campus police departments also provide safety escort services for students, staff, and faculty; usually this service is provided by nonsworn personnel.³⁸ Almost all campus police departments have blue light phones available for emergencies. Nearly all campus police departments authorize officers to use a firearm (94%), a chemical spray (94%), and a baton (93%). Seldom are nonsworn personnel authorized to use a firearm. Most campuses have a mass notification system to alert students and others of an emergency situation; the most common of these systems are email (100%) and text messages (99%).³⁹

Exhibit 3.1 The Clery Act and Reporting Campus Crime

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act was signed into law in 1990 as the Campus Security Act. The act requires institutions of higher education that participate in federal financial aid programs to keep and disclose information about crime on and near their campuses. The U.S. Department of Education monitors compliance. Violations can result in penalties of up to $35,000 per infraction and suspension from federal student financial aid programs. The Clery Act requires institutions to do the following:

 Publish an annual campus security report that documents three calendar years of specified campus crime statistics and make it available to current and prospective students and employees.

 Maintain a timely public log of all crimes reported or otherwise known to campus law enforcement officials.

 Give timely warning of crimes that represent a threat to student or employee safety.

 Submit an annual report to the U.S. Department of Education that includes tallies of serious crimes, hate crimes, and arrests and disciplinary referrals for liquor law violations, drug law violations, and illegal weapons possession.40

 Clery Act statistics are available at http://ope.ed.gov/security/.

Table 3.2

Source: Uniform Crime Report, 2017 (Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018)

^* tally obtained via contact with the agency in January, 2019.

A Question to Consider 3.2 The Characteristics of Your Campus Police Department

Does your college or university have a police department? If yes, how many sworn officers are employed in the department? What is its geographic jurisdiction? How does your campus police department compare to typical ones as described here?

Another 250 of the special jurisdiction agencies serve public school districts, the largest of which is the School District of Philadelphia with 450 sworn officers.⁴¹ Other law enforcement agencies include those that enforce fish and wildlife conservation laws; protect transportation systems; and serve parks, airports, state government buildings, and hospitals, among others. The largest natural resource law enforcement agency is the California Department of Parks and Recreation, which employs 523 full-time sworn officers. The largest agency with transportation-related jurisdiction is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has 1,651 sworn officers.⁴²