On U.S. college and university campuses, the number of armed police officers has been increasing dramatically over the past few decades, even though rates of violent crime at institutions of higher education have been declining.
During the 2011-2012 academic year, 92 percent of public colleges and universities had an armed police force, according to a 2015 report from the U.S. Department of Justice. Sixteen years earlier, only 81 percent of campus police officers were armed. Some experts attribute this dichotomous trend to the increase in high-profile, violent events occurring in educational settings, beginning with the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech.
A more prominent law enforcement presence on college campuses has coincided with an increasingly tense relationship at the national level between police officers and people of color. In recent months, the racial profiling of law-abiding African Americans in public spaces, including on college campuses, has been widely publicized. In many such instances, police have been caught in the crosshairs. This past May, for example, police at Yale University were criticized for responding to a call from a white student who complained that a young African American woman — also a student at the university — who had been sleeping in the common area of her dorm seemed “out of place.”
Some institutions have committed time and resources to addressing this nationwide but largely local issue. Buffalo State College, The State University of New York (Buffalo State), for example, has enacted a proactive and rigorous community-policing plan to improve relations between officers and other members of the campus community. It is designed to build trust among students and police, thus creating a culture of mutual accountability.
[Above: Members of Buffalo State UPD educate incoming students about the services they offer and the role they play on campus during a resource fair in July 2018]
Assistant Chief of Police at Buffalo State Amy Pedlow says community-oriented policing helps improve the relationship with students of color by helping “clarify misunderstandings, reduce erroneous perceptions, restrict stereotyping, and deflect rumors.”
Putting Words into Action
Buffalo State President Katherine Conway-Turner, PhD, was responsible for leading the effort to create the community-policing plan. In 2015, she began by forming a Community Policing Advisory Committee (CPAC) made up of individuals whom she appointed, including a cross-section of students, faculty, and administrators — from the chief diversity officer to the director of residence life to representatives from disability services. Together they drafted a community-oriented policing philosophy designed to drive all related on-campus efforts.
According to the document, which is posted on the university’s website, a community-oriented approach to law enforcement — one that promotes trained officers, students, faculty, and staff as equal partners in policing — not only ensures the community’s safety but also enhances everyone’s quality of life. Together, police and university constituents take a proactive approach to preventing crime on campus by identifying, prioritizing, and working to solve problems.
This effort requires that students and law enforcement each assume responsibilities and roles beyond what is traditionally expected of them. Police participate in relationship-building activities with members of the university community, and students may be called upon to monitor areas of campus and report suspicious activity.
Although community policing is not a new idea, CPAC has worked tirelessly to turn philosophy into action, integrating the principles of teamwork and shared accountability into all aspects of campus life.
According to Michael Heflin, director of equity and campus diversity and a CPAC co-chair for the past two years, committee members worked hard to “preach and teach the document” so that all at Buffalo State would feel a sense of ownership. They have held meet-and-greets with committee members, distributed cards with the philosophy printed on them, and were able to get the framework endorsed by the college senate — something Heflin says demonstrates a significant show of student support.
This approach also drives police recruitment and training efforts at the college. According to Pedlow, two major criteria that the University Police Department (UPD) looks for when hiring new officers are good communication skills and an understanding of community policing. “We’re not looking for somebody who is going to be sitting in the back of a parking lot or just approaching people when they’re responding to calls — we want them to be out and engaging with the community,” she says.
To ensure that new hires possess the necessary skills to serve in these proactive, social, and educational roles, the college provides numerous trainings to supplement the basic education they receive alongside municipal law enforcement. For example, they are trained in areas such as disability awareness, LGBTQ cultural competencies, responding to mental illness, and more.
In addition, every officer within the SUNY System participates in what the SUNY Police Chiefs Association calls “fair and impartial policing training.” The two-and-a-half-day program educates them about the concept of implicit bias, including how to recognize one’s own biases and treat all people equitably.
Building a Partnership
To boost their rapport with students and faculty, Buffalo State police intentionally create opportunities for informal, social interaction. At the beginning of the year, officers are stationed at every intersection on campus as students are moving in and remain highly visible during the first week of classes. In addition, through the Adopt-a-Hall program, they volunteer to conduct regular walk-throughs in residence halls while striving to get to know the students who live there.
They also seek to build positive relationships with students and employees by conducting their business on foot or bicycle — modes of transportation designed to feel less confrontational than squad cars — as much as possible.
Educational presentations provide another context for cooperative, friendly interaction. UPD offers a wide range of workshops — including active-shooter trainings (primarily geared toward faculty), alcohol awareness sessions, and separate women’s and men’s self-defense classes — that help facilitate connections between the two groups. In addition, all incoming students receive a 30-minute basic overview of UPD, including how and when to contact them, safety tips and techniques, and more.
According to Rick Myers, administrative lieutenant for UPD, these presentations have a broad impact that goes beyond the transfer of information. “Any time we can interact with students in a capacity that’s not enforcement allows us to build relationships,” he says.
Students also have the opportunity to stand in officers’ shoes. Every year, approximately 50 of them get to experience the job of policing firsthand via the University Police Student Assistant (UPSA) program, which has existed for decades. Since Buffalo State employs only 25 officers for an estimated 10,000 students, UPSA participants serve as the police department’s “extra eyes and ears,” says Robert House, a graduate student who is also the coordinator of the program. This often translates to students patrolling campus buildings and staffing large on-campus events alongside UPD, allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of both the challenges and rewards of police work.
Collectively, Pedlow says all of these programs have helped Buffalo State’s UPD fight and prevent crime more effectively. As a result of the department’s rapport with students, faculty, and staff, members of the campus community have said they feel more comfortable alerting officers when they witness suspicious activity.
According to multiple members of CPAC, Buffalo State has been able to successfully break down barriers between students and officers since the development and implementation of its community policing philosophy. This achievement, Heflin says, has everything to do with the fact that students understand that police — in addition to faculty, staff, and administrators — are there to support them.●
Ginger O’Donnell is a staff writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity. This article was published in our January/February 2019 issue.
