Accreditation and public safety are vital issues for colleges, but rarely do they put the two together. The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators is trying to change that.
The group, known as Iaclea, started accrediting colleges’ police and public-safety departments this year, holding them to a strict set of standards.
The voluntary accreditation program is another step in the increasing professionalization of those agencies, experts say. It was designed to ensure proper procedures and to develop or tighten policies on the security issues colleges face.
According to Iaclea, institutions that pursue the accreditation may lower their insurance costs and bolster their defense against lawsuits.
Today’s campus police and public-safety officers have shed their old reputation of being little more than night watchmen. Rising enrollments and Vietnam War protests first prompted the agencies to expand, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the massacre at Virginia Tech set off a new wave of police sophistication. Expectations for campus security have risen as well: As colleges adopt the latest strategies and technologies to handle a crisis, students, parents, and legislators are scrutinizing their performance.
The Iaclea accreditation may put campus officers in a better position to meet those expectations. Almost 30 departments—at an array of institutions—have gone through the program or are in it now, and Iaclea expects many more to enroll.
“We’re seeing a time in the history of campus law enforcement when mediocrity is no longer acceptable,” said Robert C. Dillard, chief of police at the University of Richmond and a former chairman of Iaclea’s accreditation commission. “The agencies that go through this process are going to be able to do a much better job for their institutions.”
Setting the Bar
The association started setting national standards for campus police and public-safety departments in 1995. Since then, it has continually polled its more than 1,000 institutional members to find the best policies and protocols—for panic alarms, for example, or video surveillance. When Iaclea began to develop an accreditation program based on those standards, it sought input from groups whose members typically supervise police and public-safety departments: the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
At that time, some campus police forces were already certified by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, which is known as Calea. To date, 43 college agencies around the country, most of them at large public institutions, have been accredited by that group.
But many campus departments are not eligible for Calea’s program. For a department to qualify, its officers must be sworn under oath with the state-granted authority to arrest—the status that separates academy-trained officers from security or public-safety personnel. More than a quarter of campus agencies have no sworn officers, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates, but the actual proportion is probably higher. (The Justice Department, which will release in the coming weeks a new survey of campus law-enforcement agencies, counts only those that serve student populations of 2,500 or larger. Smaller colleges’ departments are typically unsworn.)
Through a cooperative arrangement, Iaclea examined Calea’s 450 standards and chose 226 that applied to campus settings. It left out, for example, those about supervising jails. And it added some of its own, including three related to the Clery Act, the federal campus-crime reporting law.
“The standards don’t exceed the requirements of the statute, but hopefully help to inform and clarify the intent of the statute, so that if an agency is in compliance with the standards, they will also be in compliance with the law,” said John Leonard, Iaclea’s accreditation coordinator.
To be accredited by Iaclea, agencies must maintain daily crime logs, as well as written policies on how to issue timely warnings—campuswide notifications of serious crimes—and how to prepare annual campus-safety reports. The accreditation commission is developing new standards on, for example, safety escort services and blue-light telephones for emergency assistance.
“Issues are identified where a standard can ... provide some guidance to an agency to operate at the highest level of effectiveness,” Mr. Leonard said.
‘Standard of Care’
Six college police departments have been accredited by the group this year, all in a fast-track program for those already certified by Calea, and 22 have begun the process, which can take up to three years. They must prove compliance with each standard to a team of assessors who travel to the campus. The program costs $11,000 to $16,000, depending on the size of the institution.
That amount is similar to the price of an external review for any office, said Thomas M. Crady, vice president for student services at Grinnell College, which is among the 22 now in the program. The public-safety director there pitched the Iaclea accreditation to Mr. Crady last year.
“This seemed like a natural move,” he said. “Then we know that we’re providing a certain standard of care for our students on campus.”
Eastern Michigan University’s police department signed up for the accreditation last spring, as the institution faced harsh rebukes for its response to a student’s murder—most notably, its failure to issue a timely warning, which was later determined to be a violation of the Clery Act.
“Obviously we weren’t quite up to date in some areas of our procedures,” said Robert K. Heighes Jr., Eastern Michigan’s interim director of campus police.
The university had started the Calea accreditation process several years ago, but dropped out because of the cost. Now the police department is updating its policies and pursuing Iaclea’s accreditation. “It’s a lot of hard work,” said Mr. Heighes. “It spurs growth. It’s something to be proud of once we do get it.”
Not all college police forces are flocking to the program. Some are already accredited by their states, and in California, for example, there is a special training program for campus law-enforcement agencies. Kenneth Arnold, chief of police at Napa Valley College, looked at Iaclea’s accreditation program and decided against it.
“In some colleges’ cases, it probably isn’t going to be the most effective thing because you have to answer to your state accrediting agency,” he said. “The state would look at it and go, ‘Well, who’s Iaclea and what do they know?’”
But whether institutions are after a first or second credential, several are valuing the Iaclea accreditation. “College police departments are becoming more aware of the fact that we need to do something to keep up with the latest technologies and operating procedures, and this is another big step in that direction,” said James D. Chapman, chief of police at Arkansas State University, which just began the program.
The Arkansas State University police have already revised several policies, including one on officers’ use of weapons. “Before it was pretty generic,” Mr. Chapman said. “We’ve had to be more specific in what the policy addresses to make sure it meets Iaclea standards.”
The university’s vice chancellor for student affairs, William R. Stripling, who supervises the police department, rests easier knowing that the agency will soon be accredited.
“In light of today’s environment, we see it as being something that’s really important,” he said. “It will not only make us feel that we’re safer, but that we’re doing the right thing.”
