My alum university has been plagued with reported rapes in the dorms this month. My employer has assigned me to work temporarily next door to the building where the rapes are occurring.
I want to be a proactive in asking the campus security to work more in conjunction with the county sheriff’s department. Their current solutions are enhancing dorm security, increasing campus patrol, bystander intervention training and confidential advocate services.
I’d be so grateful for input from each of you for suggestions about other possible law enforcement services as I’m working on a cohesive email. Thank you so much in advance for your input my friends.
I think I’d need to know a lot more about your local sheriff’s department before deciding whether this is actually a good idea. There are some sheriff’s departments I really wouldn’t want to invite on campus.
You may need to find out what the role of that university’s campus security is. Is it to protect the students, or is it to protect the reputation of the university?
Related to the previous question but not quite the same, are they themselves law enforcement officers or contracted security?
My own alma mater had sworn LEOs who did interact with and have written policies for working with the local police and county sheriff’s office, which was a good idea in a large city, e.g. having actual authority to detain and arrest people themselves.
This may be the case here as well and worth checking in any event.
Independent department under Texas law, not as a 2nd job or on assignment or otherwise.
It is not uncommon for larger universities in Texas to have their own independent departments. I believe this is the case elsewhere as well but I’m not certain. Some, like at my university, are not large enough to have their own cells or perform full criminal investigations, but that’s when their cooperation agreements with local LEOs comes into play and why they have explicit written policies about those agreements.
It is not uncommon that troublemaking trespassers are arrested and handed over to the county sheriff’s office to be held there. And also not uncommon they are surprised they aren’t dealing with rent-a-cops or off duty 2nd jobbers and are in actual no-joke legal trouble and not let off with a trespassing warning. More rarely, students have gotten into serious enough trouble to be handed over to the county to be held in jail as well.
Hence, the question of whether it’s an actual department with sworn LEOs or contracted security
Decades ago, I worked in campus security while attending college. At my school, while the university police was a certified police agency with full police powers, sworn officers, full time officers, etc., campus security was just for locking and unlocking doors, etc.
We wouldn’t have been involved with anything like that.
What are you hoping to accomplish by having them work with the local sheriff department? Anything specific or are you just concerned about the situation and believe this will help?
In some cases, the school’s police force is a department.
I’ve seen it at Montana State University and at least two universities in Cleveland. But at Villanova, the campus just had a non-police security force (probably some of them were moonlighting or retired police, but they didn’t have police authority by virtue of that job).
First, I found out that the primary security officers are sworn police employees of the state of California. Secondly Czarcasm’s very reasonable question about whether it is to protect the students or to protect the reputation of the university. Of course because I’m not a journalist/attorney, I would not get a definite answer to that from the department head. For a third point, my manager pointed out that the dormitory where the rapes had their grand opening in 8/26. She said that unfortunately that means the security guidelines probably have unforeseen flaws that may have contributed to the crisis.
My manager and coworkers recommended to me that I let the campus police handle the rape cases and resolve their own problems (so that’s what I’ll do of course). Overall I should really have a little trust in law enforcement personnel.
It’s not clear to me what your situation is. Unless you work for the university, it seems extremely odd that you would be reaching out to them with suggestions. And even if you do work there, unless your job has direct responsibilities in the area, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m sure they are very aware of the options they have for working with other law enforcement agencies.
Villanova is a private Catholic university. It is not unheard of but it’s a lot less likely for a private university to have a police department. That would greatly depend on the law in that particular state. For instance I know Princeton University has a mixture of sworn officers and unsworn security. Since they are not government employees they can not be part of the police and fire retirement system. 30 minutes away Rutgers University has a full police department of sworn officers with statewide jurisdiction. Basically 3 departments when you add in Rutgers Newark and Rutgers Camden.
To be honest I’m not really sure what the OP is asking.
My thread was titled improperly, but then so was the letter I decided not to send.
I’m mad because there have been multiple rapes in the university dorm next to my workplace during September, with no persons of interest/suspects. Yet it seems nuts to send a letter for service to law enforcement officers since they’re sworn officers, right?
So I wanted to everyone who commented here. Everyone here gives good advice.
In Texas, at least, all the major private universities (SMU, Baylor, Rice, Texas Christian) have police departments with sworn officers licensed under state law
I am also not really sure what you are asking, but in the U.S. “sworn officers” do not come with a guarantee that they will protect you from harm in all scenarios, and IMO sending them a letter about how they suck will not go over very well.
As for forces under control of the government on university campuses, if you think back to Vietnam, the concern is that they are the ones tear-gassing, beating, and sometimes killing protesters, but I am not sure what the modern thinking is on this. (E.g., in Greece, in 1974 they passed a law barring police from entering an institution of higher learning, but it was revoked in 2019.) I hope no one has to find out.