Policing College Campuses: the Production of Racialized Risk
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Policing College Campuses: The Production of Racialized Risk Kelly Nielsen Laura T. Hamilton Veronica Lerma University of California-Merced Direct correspondence to Laura Hamilton, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, 5200 North Lake Road, University of California-Merced, Merced, CA 95343 ([email protected]). We wish to thank Jovita Angel, Ashley Bennett, Maria Duenas, Darkari Finister, Rosa Hernandez, Reginald Nelson, Ana Padilla, Patrick Pascual, and Mayra Ramirez for their research support and insights. This research was supported by a William T. Grant Scholars grant awarded to Laura Hamilton and a William T. Grant Scholars Mentoring grant awarded to Veronica Lerma and Laura Hamilton. Opinions reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agency. Policing College Campuses: The Production of Racialized Risk Recent months have brought powerful demands for reform, divestment, and abolition of municipal police departments, but campus police are typically overlooked. We argue that contemporary university policing is shaped by three types of “creep:” the tendency for policing to move into previously unpoliced contexts, take on more expansive roles, and adopt an increasingly aggressive stance—or, carceral creep, mission creep, and conflict creep. We draw on qualitative data from case studies of two schools in the University of California system to ask: How do campus police activities produce risk, both physical and psychological, for racially marginalized individuals? We detail the mechanisms producing risk for racially marginalized individuals in four contemporary campus police activities: routine policing, protecting the conservative provocateur, managing the large student protest, and responding to the active attacker. We show that even when university police and leadership purport best intentions, these activities can create harm for racially marginalized populations on campus. Keywords: race, police violence, higher education Policing College Campuses: The Production of Racialized Risk “The University of California Police Department—which continues to arrest, assault, and detain Black people with little to no accountability—must be disarmed and dismantled.” —The University of California Student Association (June 2020) College campuses are places of learning, growth, and social mobility. But they are also policed. Today, 92 percent of four-year public universities with more than 2,500 students have an armed police force with full arrest powers, and most large campuses have mutual aid agreements with local police agencies (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015). Scholars have documented the “racial trauma” that racially marginalized individuals experience as a result of “threats of harm and injury, humiliating and shaming events, and witnessing harm to other [people of color and indigenous individuals] due to real or perceived racism” (Comas-Díaz, Hall, and Neville 2019:1; also see Bryant-Davis and Ocampo 2006; Carter 2007). Police interactions are often a source of racial trauma. Mental health and self-assessed health decline as a result of police contact—even contact that is indirect, occurring to others in a community (Geller, Fagan, Tyler, and Link 2014; McFarland, Geller, and McFarland 2019; Sewell, Jefferson, and Lee 2016). Risk of being killed by the police is also dramatically higher for Black, Latinx, and indigenous people (Edwards, Lee, and Esposito 2019). Research indicates that racially marginalized students on residential campuses face similar risks from campus police as they do from public law enforcement. For instance, a study of Black men at six residential campuses finds that these students experience greater surveillance and policing relative to their peers; Black men are often defined as being “out of place” and seen as “fitting the description” of a threatening element (Smith, Allen, and Danley 2007). Students in the study described symptoms of “racial battle fatigue”—characterized by high rates of anxiety, anger, resentment, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear (also see Walker 2020). Media has also reported increasing involvement of university forces in deadly incidents on US college campuses (Marcus 2015). Recent months have brought powerful demands ranging from reform to disinvestment and abolition of municipal police departments, but campus police are typically overlooked (Allen 2015; Patten et al. 2016). In this article, we draw on data from case studies of two schools in the University of California system to ask: How do campus police activities produce risk, both physical and psychological, for racially marginalized individuals? The campuses we studied have majority racially marginalized student bodies and thus high potential for contact between police and students who may experience racial trauma as a result. We argue that contemporary university policing is shaped by three types of “creep:” the tendency for policing to move into previously unpoliced contexts, take on more expansive roles, and adopt an increasingly aggressive stance— or carceral creep, mission creep, and conflict creep. We detail the mechanisms producing risk for racially marginalized individuals that are a direct result of four contemporary campus police activities: routine policing, protecting the conservative provocateur, managing the large student protest, and responding to the active attacker. show that even when university police and leadership purport to be well-intentioned, campus police can create harm for racially marginalized populations on campus. University PD US law enforcement is a race-making institution. It has played a central role in justifying unequal racial arrangements via colorblind, and seemingly neutral, appeals to legality, safety, and morality (Bonilla-Silva 2010; Carlson 2019; Feagin 2010). The criminalization of people of color has become a primary mechanism for social control in the United States (Richie 2012; Rios 2011; Wacquant 2001; Western 2006). Kim (2020: 254) has coined the term “carceral creep” to describe the “incremental and often imperceptible advance of carceral forces” into social institutions where they were previously absent (also see Rios 2011; Simon 2007). Carceral creep is visible in higher education. College campuses have not always included a police force. For much of the 20th century, basic security was accomplished with a hodge- podge collection of professors, administrators, watchmen, and maintenance workers (Peak, Barthe, and Garcia 2008). The widespread creation of university police departments with full arrest powers was a direct response to political protests of the 1960s-70s, the changing racial composition of the student body, and the breakdown of in loco parentis, which enabled universities to restrict students’ political and sexual lives (Cooper 2017). University campuses were suddenly perceived as anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and in need of discipline. The social problem of campus crime was invented (Sloan and Fisher 2011). Contemporary campus police departments often operate as “micro-communities that require policing levels comparable with small municipalities” (Vaughn and Johnson 2020; also see Bromley 2013; Reaves 2015). Campus police are more likely to be college educated than other officers, which may give them a better understanding of how university campuses work (Heaton et al. 2016). They often have lower hour requirements for police academy and in-service trainings than municipal police (Reaves 2008). However, campus police typically carry firearms, enforce laws, and are charged with preventing and detecting crime. They are authorized to use deadly force to eliminate perceived threats to campus safety and have exposure to broader police culture and norms. The structure of campus police agencies also mimics other police forces (Sloan 1992). As a result, some scholars have concluded that the primary difference between campus and municipal police is their employer (Vaughn and Johnson 2020). Policing on college campuses has also followed general policing trends. Campus police forces have grown in size over time (Heaton et al. 2016; Peak et al. 2008)—increases that have paralleled a rise in racially marginalized students on historically white university campuses (Allen and Jewell 2002; Krogstad and Fry 2014). That is, as campuses have become less white, they have developed a more robust police presence. Similarly, outside of college campuses, one of the strongest predictors of police strength has been the percentage of the population that identifies as Black (McCarty, Ren, and Zhao 2012). Campus police, like municipal police (see Kiker 2014; Tulumello 2018), have experienced mission creep (Heaton et al. 2016; Peake et al. 2008). They now have a broad range of duties including uniformed patrols, arrests, investigations, crime prevention, parking enforcement, training, crime reporting, public event coordination, planning, narcotics, traffic and accident investigations, dealing with hazardous materials, canine unit operation, and SWAT. Jurisdiction has stretched beyond the bounds of college campuses. The changing legal context of the university has played a role in mission creep, as police manage Clery Act requirements for crime reporting on and near campus, US Department of Education procedures for the investigation and adjudication of student-on-student sexual harassment, and are expected to prevent victimizations for which universities may be held financially accountable (Heaton et al. 2016; Peake et al. 2008).