There are differences between the powers of arrest that a private citizen has and the powers of arrest a police officer has.
Those are all private security forces. None are police, with police powers, employed by the state.
Private security is fine. Nothing new there. Been done forever.
What is new here that required a new law?
No, it’s routine in many states for private railroads, hospitals, and universities to have police, with guns and sirens and power of arrest and all that.
Alabama enshrines a specific list of institutions in its law on private police departments. This law (see post 8) appended the name of the church to that list. That’s it.
Kind of, I suppose, but does that constitute “establishment of a religion” ? I know the amendment is usually boiled down to/understood to mean “church in this corner, state in that corner” (and I wholeheartedly agree they should be kept separate, or better yet for church to be taken behind the chemical shed and shot) but it’s not what your Constitution says exactly.
Just a couple of thoughts/comments:
*Wisconsin allowed a private religious college (Marquette University) convert their public safety department to a fully state certified/sworn police department. Fully armed, full arrest powers, etc…
I don’t recall reading about any challenges to this on 1st Amendment or any other grounds.
*Even if private security is fully armed and equipped, the dynamic of powers and responsibilities is different from that of a law enforcement agency. And the oversight from the state is different as well.
*There are police departments in the U.S where officers are unarmed. Most of them university PD’s. But I believe there is some sort of transportation police agency in Chicago that’s unarmed. IMHO the brass of such departments are buckling to pressure from administrators that know nothing of law enforcement tactics, and any sworn officer who would even work or try to affect an arrest without that level of the force continuum available is out of their mind!
Wow…I never knew that. Surprised that I didn’t.
Not sure I am ok with it either. Do these private police have to meet the same requirements as “regular” police officers? Are they beholden to the same strictures as regular police officers (read abiding by the laws that deal with stopping/arresting citizens)? Are these private police forces, with police powers, allowed to investigate people?
I am surprised police unions are cool with it too.
Railroad police in the US go back to the mid-1800’s. In the US, they are generally based in a single state, where the LEOs are the equivalent of state police, and are empowered by the federal government to work on any company policy in any state.
Not to mention the dream police. (They live inside of my head.)
Perhaps that’s because Marquette is open to students of any (or no) religious affiliation. Briarwood’s cops raison d’etre is to prevent “intruders”–such as the man who made obscene gestures during a church service a few years back. Marquette is also subject to state open records laws. Briarwood is not.
Also, Marquette is a large university campus (11,000 students, 100 acres), while Briarwood is essentially a church with a small seminary. According to its website,
) Again, Briarwood is not a university; it’s a church. Big difference. Universities won the right to have cops in the tumultuous Sixties with the argument that campus police wouldn’t be seen as outsiders (a view perhaps not shared by many students) and whose presence wouldn’t incite violent reactions. Universities also argued campus police would alleviate the strain on local cops, who were frequently called to campuses during student unrest; Briarwood can’t make that argument.
You’re assuming Briarwood police would be unarmed. Just because they’ll be trained in the use of non-lethal force (Tasers), doesn’t mean they can’t open carry. The Alabama law invests them with the full powers of police. It does not say they can’t use lethal force.
Many hospitals and universities are government run. So it’s not that much of a stretch for them to have their own law enforcement. Private venues can get the state to allow them to establish an agency as well. Those departments are established under whatever regulations the state or federal government has for peace officers. They have to attend the same training, in-service training, etc as any other LEO would. They are regulated no differently than any other department. If the state or feds say they are sworn peace officers then they have generally the same kind of duties and authoritah as any other cop. Just in unique settings is all.
And most of the officers have the option of being in a police union.
I know several officers at Marquette. Prior to becoming a police department they were fully armed [private] public safety. If they had detained someone they would call the Milwaukee Police and MPD would arrest the person, book them, etc… Now the campus officers do all that. They had to build different facilities for holding cells, etc… Plus it’s changed their procedures because the dynamics of detaining someone, especially regarding search and seizure are different for a LEO. Compared to that of a private citizen. It can be a thin line but it is different.
As a citizen can I recognize them as legit peace officers? How do I know before I am busted for resisting arrest?
Consider:
- Officer Friendly in uniform tells me to stop in the name of the law
- Joe security guard at Marquette University tells me to stop in the name of the law
- pkbites tells me to stop in the name of the law
Frankly I am only listening to Officer Friendly who is in uniform. I’m getting away from the rest of you. Especially pkbites since as far as I am concerned he is up to no good.
Why would I ever think these people, other than Officer Friendly, are state sanctioned law enforcement?
Who is your “Officer Friendly”? What police department is he a member of? Are you drawing a distinction between legitimate police officers from different police departments? On what basis? Or did you miss the part about Marquette University having a “fully state certified/sworn police department”?
I assume you are just being cute with the “stop in the name of the law” thing.
With only a few exceptions most private security cannot use the word “police” in the title or uniforms. At least not in my state, YMMV. An actual police officer is usually required to have an official ID card he has to show you. And actually identify himself verbally as police.
But your scenario does point out one important difference between college police and security. Most colleges have a student/employee code of conduct that mandates if a member of school security, for any reason, tells them to stop and identify themselves with a student or employee ID, they have to. Refusing to do so can affect their status as a student or employee. I don’t believe legally they can require that if the officer is actually a sworn cop. I would think Terry would kick in.
I wonder if this is one reason why Marquette maintained some non-sworn public safety officers.
Meh. In North Carolina, private police have all the powers of regular municipal police, as long as they are on property owned or controlled by their employer. That’s right…the mall police in NC often have every right to arrest you on mall property. It’s no namby-pamby citizen’s arrest, either.
To return to the issue of a church having a police force…Investing governmental powers in a church is far different from investing them in other institutions. The Briarwood Church police force, invested by the state with the full power of police officers, may not pass the third prong of the Lemon test:
(Lemon v. Kurtzman).
Take the FLDS church, which controlled towns within its sphere of influence, including local police departments. The DOJ investigation found that the FLDS-controlled police departments had unlawfully arrested and taken property from individuals who didn’t abide by FLDS rules. Like the FLDS cops, Briarwood cops would report only to church authorities (and again, they would not be subject to state open records laws.), so the possibility of abuse and covert corruption is there. And this is a church that has a history of opacity: the church refused to divulge non-confidential information such as the number of students arrested in the 2015 drug bust at the church’s school, even to parents of students.
There’s good reason this law will go to the courts while the establishment of police forces in other institutions have not.
If you fight them off and run away, can they later arrest you for “resisting arrest”?
Will they be given the same privileges granted to govt coppers that allow them to initiate violence and coercion? If so, sounds just like more govt coppers and I’m against. If they are held to the same standards as private citizens, I am for. The fact that they are private and religious has no bearing on the matter. The question is are they more or less likely than govt coppers to initiate violence. They probably will be less likely so sounds like a positive but let’s wait and see.
The Lemon test is all but dead and buried.
The law is basically that the government may not favor nor diminish religion. It must be neutral to it.
So, if the state says that an organization is eligible to have a private police force if it has X numbers, X amount of land, this factor, that factor, then the police force must be available to all comers on equal terms without regard to religion (or lack thereof).
So, I guess “Thoughts and Prayers” weren’t enough -
I’m not “cool” with either of these organizations.
Where I live, in Brooklyn, the Shomrim have long been a pain in the ass. Occasionally a violent pain in the ass.
I haven’t heard anything about the MCPS being a pain (yet), and I suspect they try to keep a lower profile and generally stay out of trouble, given the risk of generating anti-Muslim feeling.
However, neither of these organizations are police forces. I would like them even less if they were.
They (especially the Shomrim, who have even attempted, unsucessfully so far, to obtain permission to carry firearms) have taken it upon themselves to patrol the public streets of Brooklyn, not just the grounds of mosques/synagogues/shul/madrasas/etc. I don’t like this at all.