In the 2004–05 school year, 87% of college campuses had sworn officers with the power to arrest, and 90% of these departments were armed. Some secondary public school districts maintain their own police, such as the
Los Angeles School Police Department, the
Miami-Dade County Public Schools Police Department and the
New York City Police Department School Safety Division.
History in the United States While modern conceptions and roles of campus policing are relatively new, their introduction into US colleges and universities is not.
Yale University is accredited with creating the first university police force in 1894, with the initial function of the removal and policing of homeless people from the university premises. However, the creation of the police force at Yale did not precipitate the implementation of nationwide campus police forces and the proliferation of modern campus policing was still not yet feasible. The next few decades of campus policing mainly occurred through the designation of police officers on universities to serve as
watchmen. In addition to increases in enrollment, the
antiwar,
civil rights, and other
protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s similarly contributed to the development and evolution of campus policing as it is known today. It was during this time that colleges and universities began to hire former members of law enforcement and the military to control student protesters. With these political and social forces at play, universities continued to model the function of their police forces after city police departments, in what is known as a vocational policing. Under this model, the university would have direct oversight over the police force, and a more militarized structure of hierarchies would be at play. Similar trajectories would occur with the implementation of police officers, known as
school resource officers (SRO's) in U.S. public schools. As of 2016, 77% of schools in the U.S. with 1000 or more students reported having at least one SRO on their campus at least once a week. With city police departments as a model, campus and public school police forces began to emerge as entities who operate on the basis
mass surveillance on campuses. This was achieved through a myriad of mechanisms, including the solidifying of administrative systems, advocating for policing via community partnerships, standardized policing procedures and protocols, and more significantly, the arming of campus police. The evolution of campus police forces into seemingly more professional entities was also made evident in changes to uniform policies. This took shape through the use of uniforms that were similar in fashion to military uniforms, in addition to the incorporation of bulletproof vests. The goal of making campus police more professional, similarly included the employment and recruitment of retired law enforcement officials. This ultimately led campuses to heighten policing efforts. School shootings would also have a huge impact on the shaping of modern campus police forces, as well as the justification to arm them. The
Virginia Tech shooting of 2007, in which 32 people were killed and another 17 wounded, garnered media attention at the international level and consequently brought about various changes to how policing is conducted on college campuses. In the aftermath of the massacre, various task force reports were conducted to create policy recommendations for universities, the state, and specifically for campus police, in preparation for the next Virginia Tech. These reports indicated the limited scope and resources of campus police, and in the case of Virginia Tech, campus police were tasked with enlisting the help of the
Blacksburg Police Department during the shooting. A 2015
US Department of Justice special report was compiled to examine the role and data of campus police in their response to shootings such as the Virginia Tech incident, and others. The report which analyzed the 2011–2012 school year, found that the percentage of campuses using armed police officers rose 7% from the 2004–2005 school year, and roughly 94% of campus police officers were allowed to use other weapons such as pepper spray and batons. Expansion and militarization of campus policing on colleges and universities has taken place alongside an increase in incidents of
police violence and
racial bias no different from their municipal counterparts. Black student activists at Yale university (which is accredited for creating the first campus police force in the US) have since been advocating for the
abolition and
defunding of the campus police, citing a 2019 incident in which Yale police officers shot an unarmed Black couple. As of 2020, over 85
student unions and groups have made calls to their respective
campus administrators to end their associations with university and city police departments. == United Kingdom ==