Policing College Campuses: The Production of Racialized Risk

Abstract

<p>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.</p>