Campus Cops

The brave new world of private police forces

By CARA BAYLES

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After the Virginia Tech massacre last April, Brandeis University considered repealing its long-standing policy of keeping campus police unarmed. A committee of students, staff and faculty met five times over the summer, hearing presentations from Waltham Police and public safety officials at Bentley and Babson Colleges. In September, the committee submitted a report to President Jehuda Reinharz recommending that Brandeis Police carry firearms. It signals a larger trend of militarizing campus security forces in preparation for a possible violent catastrophe.

Ben Serby, a sophomore at Brandeis, formed Students Opposing the Decision to Arm (SODA), because he was troubled to learn of the committee's verdict after the fact. "We got an email informing us of the decision two weeks into the school year. I think most students were surprised," he says. "Student representation on the committee was pathetic. The administration hand-picked two members of the student union, who'd already worked closely with administrators and trustees. They weren't going to rock the boat."

At the crux of the debate was the question: Would arming campus police make the school safer? Virginia Tech, Delaware State and Northern Illinois University all had armed police before their respective slayings.

Taletha Derrington, the Brandeis panel's graduate student, said some students from countries and communities with repressive police were concerned about arming the private police force. She later told the Justice, Brandeis' student newspaper, "I had hoped that rather than following the pack of other universities that have armed their police ... [Brandeis would make] a decision that uses our brains rather than our brawn to address the issue of campus security."

Rivka Maizlish, a SODA member, says offering students mental health resources is an important component of preventing violence. "I feel safe at Brandeis now, because I know there are good psychological services for students," she says. "Looking at Virginia Tech, there was clearly a mental health issue there. And Virginia has much looser gun laws than Massachusetts, so it was easier for the shooter to access a gun." State gun laws still apply to online purchases (like the ones at topglock.com bought by both the Virginia Tech and NIU shooters), since guns purchased online are sent to local firearms dealers.

Campus police at Brandeis, like those at most major universities in the state (including Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts, Northeastern, Harvard, all five UMass campuses and most state schools), are Special State Police Officers (SSPOs). Massachusetts General Law grants these officials police powers within the jurisdiction of the campus that employs them. Trooper Eric Benson, spokesperson for the Massachusetts State Police, says while not all campus police are licensed to carry firearms, most schools use SSPOs. "Most major campuses have campus police and maybe a security department as well," he says. "Very small schools may exist that just have a security department."

But it wasn't always this way; 50 years ago, schools could only employ security guards. Chris Blake, project director at the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), says student protests inspired the current system. "In late '60s, there became a heightened need for campuses to have their own police officers," he says. "So you saw a number of states granting arrest powers to campus police." It should be noted, the term "school shooting" in 1970 conjured Kent State and Jackson State, where it was National Guardsmen or police shooting students, not students killing their peers.

Just as the political turbulence of the 1960s ushered in a new era of campus safety, this age of school shootings has created a new wave of security. James Ferrier, associate director of public safety at Northeastern University, says modern concerns herald new attitudes and technological innovations. "The era in which the campus security department was viewed as a 'necessary evil' has passed and today's faculty, staff, students and parents expect a high level of public safety," says Ferrier. "Since tragic events like Columbine and September 11th, most university police departments, including Northeastern's, have conducted self-evaluations to review their policies and preparedness for major emergencies and have undergone extensive training on a regular basis to ensure their officers are prepared."

Ferrier says the 42-year-old decision to use sworn-in officers benefited both universities and police departments. "Municipal departments in many communities were neither staffed nor equipped to deal with additional crime and disorder, so they looked to the universities themselves to upgrade their security forces in order to more effectively deal with crime problems on campuses," Ferrier says. "In 1966, Massachusetts was one of the first states to pass legislation authorizing colleges and universities to employ proprietary private police forces with full law enforcement authority."

The contemporary argument for a private armed police force echoes these concerns. According to the Brandeis committee's report, Capt. William Stanton of the Waltham Police said the municipal department's typical response time for emergency calls was 2-5 minutes, but that variables could further delay police. "I'm glad Bentley is armed," Stanton told the committee. "And I have tremendous confidence in the Brandeis campus chief."

Brandeis Director of Public Safety Edward Callahan, a committee member, says the verdict didn't come easily. "Universities were never exposed to mass criminal situations before. It's a very different world we live in today," he says. "You have to look at how it impacts the community as a whole. But it came down to adequate protection, in light of Virginia Tech."

Many universities have contacted IACLEA for advice on how to prepare for extreme situations. "There's been a lot of interest in emergency mass notification systems, ways to alert the entire campus if something happens," Blake says. "We don't have any specific guidance, except to build in redundancies, so if one system crashes, you have other options."

John King, public safety director at Tufts, boasts that he installed a system last year that enables the school's crisis communications team to warn students, faculty and staff via cell phones, email, text messaging, landlines and pagers. "Tufts tested the system on November 16th," he says. "Over the course of the 37-minute test, we issued more than 43,300 messages to 15,000 individuals registered in the system. Within 15 minutes of the start of the test, alerts had been issued to 99 percent of the community."

Over the summer, Brandeis installed sirens, plasma screen devices that can flash warnings and an alert system that sends emails and text messages.

While the technology is new, the personnel policy is old; most schools in Massachusetts have used SSPOs for years, and there are several potential paths to become an SSPO. "But you need to be in law enforcement to be eligible," Benson says. You can't work at a McDonald's and say, 'I want to be a state police officer.'"

SSPOs can train at a municipal police academy or with the MBTA police for 800 hours of instruction, which includes firearms and motor vehicle law. Tufts' Police train at MBTA Transit Police Academies in Boylston, Quincy and Reading.

Other SSPOs are former state troopers, who already qualify, having undergone the 1,326 hours of required training. "Many troopers retire and then want to work at a college. They're automatically eligible," says Benson. State trooper recruits live at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree Monday through Friday, and put in 16-hour days of demanding physical and classroom training comparable to boot camp, complete with marching, salutes and drill instructors who will throw your mattress into the hallway if your hospital corners aren't flawless.

The State Police Academy also offers a 15-week SSPO training for eligible candidates (Northeastern sometimes uses this model). Benson says the SSPO course is essentially an abbreviated version of trooper training, though it doesn't cover firearms or traffic laws (many universities opt for additional certification for these responsibilities). "There are paramilitary aspects to the training," Benson says. "It's a disciplined environment; you have to call your instructors 'Sir' or 'Ma'am.' SSPOs do drill and ceremony, though not nearly as much as state troopers."

Benson says SSPOs can take any class offered to troopers at the State Police Academy, including "active shooter" courses, which simulate Virginia Tech-style scenarios. They use Simunitions, guns that shoot balls of detergent. "They really whip at you, though," Benson says. "They're used as a tool to gauge proficiency and response for real-life scenarios. It's about making the decision to shoot and whether or not you sought proper cover." The curriculum is not particularly new. "The active shooter courses weren't created in response to Virginia Tech; they've existed for about a decade."

Callahan says after Brandeis police complete physical and mental evaluations and all their firearms training this spring, they'll be enrolled in an active shooter course at the academy over the summer.

Benson says they aren't the only ones. "We have increased the number of classes that we've offered recently, which would lead me to believe that enrollment is up," he says.

State police training has been touted as proof of the high qualifications of campus police and raised eyebrows about the militarization of a private police force. The most common calls that university police answer deal with vandalism, noise complaints, theft and alcohol and drug use/abuse. Many schools subscribe to "community policing," a feel-good philosophy in which officers walk beats and develop relationships with students, rather than anonymously patrolling in cars.

Ferrier says Northeastern's "highly educated and professionally trained staff" uses the community policing model. "High visibility of uniformed police and public safety staff on campus, the extensive use of security technology such as closed-circuit security cameras, fire, intrusion and duress alarms, emergency telephones and strict control of residence hall access are integral parts of our safety program," he says. King says Tufts, which employs 17 SSPOs, emulates a small-town feel. "Officers walk beats around campus," he says. "Some are assigned patrol duty in clearly marked cars. We're visible. As a result our students, faculty and staff feel safe. Visibility is also a deterrent to improper activity."

Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn says the department adopted the community-oriented problem-solving (COPS) philosophy 12 years ago. "The core components of the philosophy are prevention, partnerships and problem solving," Wrinn says. "HUPD officers are problem-solvers, as well as law enforcers, who work in partnership with the community to address and solve problems. Through these partnerships and collaborative problem-solving, officers deal with problems, prevent crime and help maintain a community free of disorder."

While these philosophies sound somewhat utopian, concerns still exist, even in the community "free of disorder." Last spring, dorm residents called HUPD about a group of African-American students playing on the quad, questioning whether the revelers were even students. The incident provoked accusations of racial profiling, not just from HUPD, but as a campus-wide problem, in which police were not "problem solvers," but mediators between different campus communities.

"It's unusual for students to be asked for their IDs in the middle of the day," says Malcolm Glenn, president of the Crimson, Harvard's student newspaper. (Serby recalled two alleged incidents of racial profiling of Brandeis students since the fall of 2006).

In 2003, the Crimson also ran into trouble with HUPD, when they sued the university for withholding its police records. By 2006, the case had progressed to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLU), represented the Crimson, and argued that a private department whose officers carry guns and make arrests ought to be subject to the public records law, but she lost the case.

"We have concerns about lack of public oversight of campus police officers who are armed and can engage in the same abusive conduct as other officers, like racial profiling," she says. "If they are going to have these kinds of powers, they ought to be subject to public oversight. But the court and the university said the laws don't apply, because the records are held by a private university."

There are limits to public record access. Records of current, ongoing investigations are off-limits, and the names of officers are often redacted. But Wunsch says the Crimson sought HUPD records on closed cases and was looking for patterns in policing techniques and complaints.

Glenn says the paper sued for journalistic reasons. "Before I came here, [the] campus police didn't even release their police log. Now they do," he says. "The next step was even greater transparency, and I don't know how much progress we've made on that front."

The Dig experienced some of this secrecy firsthand, when Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn said, "We do not divulge the numbers of special state police officers employed."

Serby says the decision to arm Brandeis police was similarly shrouded. "We were all caught off-guard," he says. "It's an issue of democracy. I recognize that people are going to make fear-based decisions in the wake of Virginia Tech. But I think this does nothing substantive to reinforce security. I think it reinforces insecurity."