A university campus is like a microcity with thousands of people, its own economy separate from the surrounding area, facilities, and rules. Instead of sending off reports and requests to city police (and how many students, staff, and faculty are locals, again?), they can have a single, centralised, limited office to handle public safety and policing.
Put another way, it's so everything that happens within the university doesn't eat into municipal or county time and resources, but they can still interoperate with some parity.
Jurisdiction issues in America were already pointed out, but I'd also remind that in the Old World, universities and their campuses traditionally enjoyed certain kinds of autonomy. This could even extend to immunity from prosecution by regular authorities, with the university as its own jurisdiction handling at least some offences autonomically.
This is, I believe, now completely a thing of the past almost everywhere, but America being rather conservative, there could be echoes of it around.
This is still the case at many universities. Offenses which would be classified as criminal (i.e. public intoxication) are handled internally by the university. From one perspective, handling the mistakes of students like this is a way of protecting the university's revenue stream, as parents often withdraw their children from the university after a criminal offense.
I was going to reply and mention that protecting the revenue stream is a cynical outlook, given that campus PD can also protect students from graduating college and having a "criminal record" for public intoxication or other petty charges.
But then I recalled an article earlier this year about how "campus PD" have been intervening in sexual assault cases and trying to get them handled by the university instead of the justice system, where there's public record and of course publicity.
There's no doubt that the school I went wins over students and their 70K/year with a reputation of being a 'party school'.
And there's no doubt that it could not have this reputation with more lenient policing than you'll see anywhere else. Certainly moreso than the policing in the inner city ghetto a mile away.
I've seen campus police consistently do nothing over drug possession issues that would, without question get jail time anywhere else in the city.
The University of Melbourne in Australia has a similar carry over. The majority of the university is on crown land, in an arrangement where most state laws do not apply (however federal law does). The state police have a standing invitation to go on campus if it's in reply to a "violent crime", but otherwise should never be there. However... the university does not have it's own police force: they just have clueless Wilson's Security personnel like any normal industrial site.
I've heard things along the lines of "most state laws do not apply (however federal law does)" before, but never with a citation. Pretty sure that's just urban legend.
It might be. I just had a look around for a citation and didn't find much. However I do recall a law student finding something in the university by-laws about it (however that shouldn't overrule state law... unless it does). I found http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UWSLawRw/2002/3.html but the University of Melbourne seems to be victorian crown land (since at least 2000 http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubP...) rather than commonwealth crown land. I don't know enough about property and title in Victoria to make a call here.
(AFAIK, the regular police don't have any jurisdictional limits stopping them from acting within university premises, but the University of Cambridge can appoint its own additional officers.)
I think the CU constabulary are largely ceremonial nowadays. The Proctors are still responsible for a bunch of disciplinary things, but probably not legal matters (more like exam rules, plagiarism and keeping a vehicle in Cambridge).
For universities in metropolitan areas, the advantage is in having police that are specialised to handling issues more common to universities (drinking/drug use), implementing policies like a good samaritan policy around drug overdose reporting, being a closer part of the community, and taking part in planning exercises for on-campus emergencies.
Source: When I studied at MIT, I volunteered with two different organisations that liaised with the police. I observed an active shooter tabletop roleplaying exercise. (no, it did not involve dice)
This is also the reason the National Park Service has its own law enforcement rangers, various state fish and game organizations have game wardens, and likely the EPA had its own special agents, among others. Not only are the issues specialized, the laws are as well.
"Campus policing originated with the establishment of the Yale Campus Police Department in 1894. Yale, located in New Haven, Connecticut, began an agreement with the New Haven Police Department to have two of their officers assigned exclusively to the campus as a means to deter crime on campus, and to better student-police relations. Shortly thereafter these two officers were hired by Yale to keep law and order on the campus. It was not until 73 years later that most college and university security departments became police departments. With the protest of the Vietnam War, the Kent State incident, and crime increasing on college campuses all over America, most of the 50 states did not pass laws authorizing colleges to have their own campus police department until the late 1960's."
Some of the literally are their own municipalities.
Two examples: The University of Notre Dame is in Notre Dame, Indiana, which happens to be surrounded by South Bend, Indiana. Same with Stanford... which is technically in Stanford, California.
Is there anywhere else that has the US model? I worked on a UK university campus for a few years and I don't think they had any security guards (certainly I never met any and I was in and out of buildings at all hours) let alone armed police!
I think UK universities mostly include limited security in their general pastoral support, rather than having dedicated security guards. So there's someone who can e.g. ask a stranger loitering on campus at night what they're doing, but anything serious will be handled by the police.
In general, it's not about the students, it's about the surrounding public. I know at my university there were several assaults over the 4 years I attended. Every last one was caused by someone from the outside coming onto campus to commit a crime.
If, for instance, sexual assault is your thing - a college campus is a pretty good place to find lots of young women who are potentially vulnerable (walking home alone/potentially inebriated). Furthermore, if you're in that approximate age range, it's pretty easy to get lost in the crowd.
That depends on the state and what kind of railroad police you're talking about. In California they are full sworn officers who have general police powers (i.e., they're not limited to operating on railroad property). In other states it's different.
Amtrak police are federal agents with nationwide jurisdiction. That makes some degree of sense when you realize that pursuit might easily cover several states. The crime itself might even cover several states -- imagine someone burglarizing sleeping compartments on the train. When he hits the first one the train is in Minnesota, but by the time he finishes, the train is in Wisconsin. Having federal jurisdiction avoids pissing contests about which state has authority.
The situation is similar for the sky marshals on planes.
I think it depends on some combination the jurisdiction, university & location. It's absolutely enforced where alcohol & alcohol related crime is a problem.
Don't forget the Boston bombers ran to MIT and killed a security guard.
While this is an extreme case some University are in urban environments. Take GaTech for example, every year someone is robbed or even murdered walking near campus. The campus police usually have to fend off vagrants or drug addicts from nearby.
I used to go to Temple in Philadelphia and the amount of crime that took place on or near campus definitely warranted its own police department.
North Philadelphia isn't the safest place to begin with, but 28,000+ college students fresh out of the nest make easy targets for criminals. There's likely around a dozen "incidents" almost daily. Of the 2 or 3 years I was there, two students were murdered, another committed suicide in the middle of campus, and a few others were shot and survived. The campus police department does its best to make a safe zone around campus with either uniformed officers and/or safety officers on the corners every few blocks outside of campus.
Police are sometimes different from Campus security.
Who else is the front line for mental health problems? A medical doctor or psychiatrist isn't going to be on standby rushing waiting for a student to become sucicidal.
Campus faculty aren't likely to be trained on this stuff.
> A medical doctor or psychiatrist isn't going to be on standby rushing waiting for a student to become sucicidal.
It actually is and is what they are for. Psychiatrists
do clinics etc but occasionally end up absent if a call comes through. It's a bit easier if a big hospital for a big city is near the uni however.
Put another way, it's so everything that happens within the university doesn't eat into municipal or county time and resources, but they can still interoperate with some parity.
Look into the Clery Act for more.