Policing the Ivory Tower: Students’ Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Campus Police Officers

Jacobsen, Shannon K.

doi:10.1080/01639625.2014.935653

Cited by 30 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(36 reference statements)

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“…Second, appeals to legal authority necessarily reference UCS services’ control functions. This runs counter to the expectation, created by cultural constraints (i.e., university values) related to the public nature of universities (see Dupont ), that UCS services care for, rather than control, members of their communities (Jacobsen ). To be sure, UCS services’ control functions are downplayed through legitimation work that appeals to their customer service and risk management expertise.…”

Section: Tensions In Ucs Services’ Public Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…As such, UCS services’ legitimacy, like that of their public police counterparts, is also dependent on their being seen as providing security as a “public good” to which everyone may access and derive benefit from (Côté‐Lussier ; Loader and Walker ; Mulcahy and Ellison ). In the organizational context of the university this means that UCS services’ legitimacy is tied to others viewing them as protective (or caring) rather than controlling and as “utilizing procedural justice and fairness in their daily practices” (Jacobsen :328; see also Dupont ).…”

Section: Ucs Services’ Legitimacy Problem and Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This claim is strengthened through tweets about UCS services’ proactive (as opposed to reactive) skillset, which sets UCS services apart from the public police who may be viewed as reactive rule enforcers. Legitimation work indexed to expertise promotes UCS services as caring for the overall well‐being (i.e., safety, security, academic, and nonacademic life) of their university communities and may mitigate “any perception of excessive control” (Dupont :276; see also Jacobsen ).…”

Section: Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, when UCS services used Twitter to exercise their authority they not only responded to an incident but also engaged in legitimation work as they demonstrated their authority and others’ compliance to their authority to a broader audience. Last, in the case of @SpecialConstable4's tweet, their assertion that the service is “working 2gether” with the university community to create a safe campus suggests that UCS personnel's exercise of authority is done for the “public good” (Loader and Walker ) and that UCS services are there to protect rather than control others (Dupont ; Jacobsen ).…”

Section: Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research has examined the various factors influencing others’ perceptions of UCS services and their legitimacy in the United States (see Griffith et al. ; Jacobsen ; Miller and Pan ; Wada, Patten, and Candela ). Yet, no research has explored the things that Canadian UCS services say and do in order to modify how their university communities and political masters perceive their legitimacy through engaging in what Thumala, Goold, and Loader () have termed “legitimation work.” The legitimation work discussed below is intended to increase how others perceive UCS services’ legitimacy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legitimizing Security in the Ivory Tower: Canadian University Corporate Security Services’ Public Quest for Legitimacy

Wilkinson

2016

Canadian Review of Sociology

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This article examines how university corporate security (UCS) services engage in legitimation work in their attempts to make their university communities (i.e., faculty, staff, students) and political masters (i.e., university administrators, boards of governors, senators) believe that they are honest, trustworthy, and caring and have authority that should be deferred to. This is accomplished through the analysis of interview and observational data collected as part of a research project exploring UCS services at five Canadian universities and an examination of how UCS services at 14 Canadian universities communicate using the social media service Twitter. These UCS services were found to primarily use Twitter for the purposes of soliciting or requesting information and for networking. In communicating through Twitter, UCS services engage in public legitimation work in which they make claims about and attempt to demonstrate their expertise, authority, and accountability. This article argues that both UCS services' particular legitimacy problem (i.e., their possession of both private and public attributes) and the interactive nature of public legitimation work create tensions that may serve to disrupt UCS services' ability to attain legitimacy. Cet article examine la manière dont les services de sécurité d'entreprise à l'université (SEU) s'engagent à légitimer leurs tentatives de persuader leurs communautés universitaires (c'est-à-dire le corps professoral, le personnel et les étudiants) ainsi que la haute administration (c'est-à-dire les administrateurs de l'université, le conseil des gouverneurs et les sénateurs) qu'ils sont honnêtes, attentifs, dignes de confiance, et qu'ils possèdent un niveau d'autorité auquel quiconque devrait se référer. Ceci sera accompli en analysant un corpus d'entrevues et d'observations dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche examinant les services de type SEU dans cinq universités canadiennes, ainsi qu'une étude sur la manière dont les services de SEU dans quatorze universités canadiennes gèrent leurs communications sur le réseau de médias sociaux Twitter. Il a été établi que ces services de SEU utilisent principalement Twitter pour la sollicitation ou la demande d'informations, et pour le réseautage. En communiquant par Twitter, les services de SEU s'engagent dans un processus de légitimation par lequel ils revendiquent et tentent de démontrer leur expertise, autorité, transparence et responsabilité. Cet article propose l'argument suivant: la question de la légitimité particulière des services de SEU (c'est-à-dire leur possession d'attributs à la fois privés et publics) combinée avec la nature interactive du processus de légitimation publique crée des tensions qui peuvent en fin de compte perturber la capacité des services de SEU à atteindre réellement cette légitimité.

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Section: Tensions In Ucs Services’ Public Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Ucs Services’ Legitimacy Problem and Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Legitimation Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legitimizing Security in the Ivory Tower: Canadian University Corporate Security Services’ Public Quest for Legitimacy

Wilkinson

2016

Canadian Review of Sociology

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Protecting the university, policing race: A case study of campus policing.

Dizon

2023

Journal of Diversity in Higher Education

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This exploratory instrumental case study provides a nuanced look at campus policing and its relationship to the well-documented perpetuation of racial inequality in U.S. higher education. To accomplish this broad goal, the study examines the experiences and perceptions of campus policing with one group, Black undergraduate men. Combining the theoretical perspectives of racial formation theory and boundaries, the major themes describe (a) how race is embedded into campus police practices, namely campus crime alerts and identification checks and (b) social practices utilized by Black undergraduates to evade campus police harm. The analysis supports the perspective that campus policing represents a racial project due to how race is a marker for granting or limiting access to the university and the benefits of campus police protection.

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Safety in numbers: security on campus and the importance of the corporatization of universities

Corradi

Popham

2021

Secur J

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Policing the Ivory Tower: Students’ Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Campus Police Officers

Cited by 30 publications

References 14 publications

Legitimizing Security in the Ivory Tower: Canadian University Corporate Security Services’ Public Quest for Legitimacy

Legitimizing Security in the Ivory Tower: Canadian University Corporate Security Services’ Public Quest for Legitimacy

Protecting the university, policing race: A case study of campus policing.

Safety in numbers: security on campus and the importance of the corporatization of universities

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