Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to compare the nature of campus police and city police in the areas of human resource and select community policing practices and policies. This comparison serves as an update to the work of Bromley and Reaves (1998a, b) and Bromley (2003).
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper utilizes the Bureau of Justice Statistics Campus Police Reports from 2012 and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Reports from 2007 and 2013 to provide a comparison between campus and city departments in matters of human resource and community outreach policies and practices, paying special attention to demographics, salary, education, training, pre-employment screening, collective bargaining, community-policing, and special programs utilized.
Findings
– The data suggest that, while differences do exist between campus and city practices, there are a substantial number of similarities between the two. In some areas, such as workforce diversity, campus police are somewhat ahead of their city counterparts. These findings indicate that campus departments are a primary piece of the larger law enforcement community.
Originality/value
– Overall, the comparisons continue to reinforce the notion that campus departments are part of the larger law enforcement community. This information may provide insights for both campus and city police executives, as well as to top-level executives at institutions of higher education.
Pepper Spray and Politics
