The security roles of campus police forces and municipal law enforcement inevitably intersect, and in many situations the two groups collaborate effectively. But the fatal shooting last month of a 43-year-old man by a University of Cincinnati police officer who was conducting an off-campus traffic stop has highlighted some of the complexities of that relationship, as well as the often-murky boundaries that define their respective authorities.
To alleviate confusion, most municipal and campus law-enforcement agencies have signed agreements, known as memoranda of understanding, that vary in scope but usually spell out general protocols for taking on cases and leading investigations. One benefit of the agreements is that they require all parties to come to the same table and have a thoughtful conversation, says Steven J. Healy, managing partner of Margolis Healy, a consulting firm on college security.
But those agreements are not, and should not be, the only instances in which they collaborate, police officials say. Effective work requires case-by-case coordination and constant communication.
The Chronicle spoke with several law-enforcement officials and experts about how campus police forces do and don’t collaborate with their local counterparts. Here is a sampling.
Facilities and Resources
Campus police departments are, for the most part, smaller than the local agencies in the cities where colleges are located. Even when colleges have their own sworn officers, they may not have the resources to handle serious offenses, like homicides.
That’s where local forces can help, says Dolores Stafford, head of the National Association of Clery Compliance Officers and Professionals and a former police chief at George Washington University. (“Clery” refers to the Clery Act, a federal law that, among other things, requires colleges to notify people on the campus of emergencies and security threats, and to produce annual security reports.) Local and campus officers can share resources like crime labs, she says, especially because “a campus agency might not have a crime-scene technician.”
Other forces share lines of communication. Occidental College, a liberal-arts institution of about 2,100 students in Los Angeles, does not have its own sworn police force, relying instead on a campus-safety department, which usually handles medical emergencies and patrol duties.
If the department ever needs help from the Los Angeles Police Department, it can contact the force on a shared radio frequency, says Jim Tranquada, a spokesman for Occidental.
Who Takes the Lead?
It’s often unclear who should take the lead in an investigation. What if a crime committed on a college campus continues into the jurisdiction of local police forces? That’s when a memorandum of understanding can be helpful, police officials and campus representatives say.
The University of Oregon’s police force is drafting such a memorandum with the Eugene Police Department. Kelly McIver, a spokesman for the university police force, says that, for the most part, his colleagues do off-campus work only when the campus’s interests intersect with those of the city. They’ll call in the Eugene officers if a more serious crime needs investigating.
Jurisdictional questions also come into play when a college officer, patrolling off campus, stops a driver or makes an arrest, as in the Cincinnati case. But given that many students live off-campus, a college’s officers may on occasion have geographic responsibility beyond campus boundaries, says Kathy R. Zoner, chief of police at Cornell University.
Data Sharing
Sharing crime data can reveal trends and lead to a more efficient allocation of resources between a campus and a local law-enforcement agency, says Joe Vossen, associate risk-management counsel at United Educators, an insurance and risk-management firm that works with colleges.
Data sharing has taken on special importance when it comes to sexual-assault cases because someone who commits a rape on a campus might have perpetrated prior sexual offenses off-campus, Ms. Zoner says.
Collaboration on statistics also helps colleges when they are trying to ensure compliance with the Clery Act. A college is required under the law to compile crime statistics from its campus as well as from public areas adjacent to college property and certain off-campus facilities.
One obstacle to such data collection is that the local police are not bound by the same federal requirements, like the Clery Act and the gender-equity law known as Title IX, that colleges are, says William Taylor, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies and chief of police at San Jacinto College, in Texas. As a result, municipal law-enforcement agencies aren’t required to respond to colleges’ requests for data.
Working to Curb Sexual Assault
Colleges and law-enforcement agencies face escalating pressure to define their relationship more explicitly and to collaborate in cases of sexual violence. Some colleges have signed separate memoranda of understanding with the local police regarding sexual assault.
While some observers contend that the local police are better equipped to run investigations of such serious crimes, Mr. Taylor says colleges, too, have a role to play, in part because their officers often have more experience dealing with the nuances of sexual assault on a campus. And given that college police departments tend to have smaller caseloads, they can sometimes put more time and effort into an investigation than a major city’s police department can, he says.
But some colleges, particularly those without sworn officers, might require help from the local police to collect evidence and conduct witness interviews in trying to resolve sexual-assault cases.
The bottom line, says Cornell’s Ms. Zoner, is that cooperation is essential in combating the chronic underreporting of the incidents and increasing trust in the investigative process.
… but They Don’t Always Collaborate
Still, coordination between municipal and campus police forces can be tricky, especially without a signed agreement in place. Ms. Stafford, the former George Washington police chief, remembers confusion between her officers and those employed by the District of Columbia, whose department has not signed an agreement with the university despite repeated requests.
In Boston, with more than 30 colleges and universities, the city’s police department does not have any memoranda of understanding with colleges. It deals with crimes on a case-by-case basis, says Officer Rachel McGuire, a spokeswoman for the department.
Metropolitan police departments have a lot on their plates, so they’re often less willing to take time to craft multiple formal agreements, Ms. Zoner says.
“Picture an investigative team that has different colleges who all want it different ways,” she says. “Ideally we’d all try to be on the same page, but there might be valid reasons why it is that way.”
