Campus policing practices and legitimacy in different community contexts: a qualitative analysis of student perspectives

Although college and university campus police are sworn law enforcement officers tasked with the same duties and responsibilities of other local law enforcement officers, they are in a unique situation because of the unique populations they serve. There is very little known about how their main constituency, undergraduate students, perceive them and how these perceptions are formed. The few studies that have examined this issue indicate that student perceptions run the gamut, with some viewing campus police as glorified security guards, and others viewing them as legitimate law enforcement authorities (Davis, 2007; Smith, 1989). The present study draws on findings in literature on traditional forms of policing to identify how students view their campus police in terms of satisfaction with campus police services (Ferrandino, 2012) and perceptions of campus policing legitimacy (Tyler, 1990) based on two primary factors: (1) students’ direct and vicarious interactions/experience with campus police (or lack thereof) and, (2) the community context in which campuses are situated. Two universities in the Northeastern United States were selected for this study: one in a large metropolitan area and the other in a small, suburban town. Each is a public institution, is of similar geographic size, and has similar crime problems. Semi-structured interviews with students on both campuses were analyzed using an inductive approach of constant comparison. Findings here indicate that, while there are some similarities in students’ levels of satisfaction with the duties that campus police fulfill in each environment, there are some stark differences in perceptions of procedural fairness and resulting views of legitimacy on each respective campus. Students on the suburban campus reported several direct or vicarious experiences in which the campus police treated them or someone they know in unfair or potentially unethical ways and as a result they indicated that they dislike and/or do not trust their campus police, particularly in comparison to other local law enforcement they have encountered. In contrast, students on the urban campus reported that their campus police treat students in fair and respectful ways and they did not indicate a dislike or distrust of them in regard to procedural treatment.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Shannon T. Gruga