Campus Law Enforcement Resources for Rape Prevention and Responses to Stalking

Abstract

Although the past few decades have taught us much about college and university responses to various forms of interpersonal violence affecting campus communities, this has largely not extended to campus law enforcement agencies. The lack of attention to this area is unfortunate given the role that these officers play on the campuses that they serve. The current study builds upon previous research using the Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies data to examine the change in individual campus law enforcement resources (i.e., personnel) dedicated to rape prevention and stalking over time (2004-2011) across 4-year institutions of higher education. Of the 352 campus law enforcement agencies under study, over 31%, 24%, and roughly 22% increased their resources/dedicated personnel for stalking, general rape prevention, and date rape prevention, respectively. In fact, the largest percentage of agencies increased their resources/dedicated personnel for stalking compared with 12 other agency-involved campus issues or tasks. Taken together, regardless of their reported resources in 2004, in 2011 a large percentage of agencies reported full-time personnel/units and personnel dedicated to rape prevention and stalking on an as-needed basis, and far fewer relied only on policies and procedures or did not officially address the campus issue or task. These findings are important in light of continued changes in campus responses to crimes affecting their campus communities.