Betwixt and between: the perceived legitimacy of campus police

James Christopher Wada

doi:10.7273/000005686

Historically, campus police (CP) have evolved similar to "mainstream" police. However, the identity of CP has been unclear. First, CP may not be accepted by university administration because they are "cops," not part of academia. Second, students and other law enforcement agencies may not perceive CP as “cops" because they are based in a university system. The legitimacy of police officers is crucial for public support and cooperation; without it, a police officer's effort to combat crime and maintain order is jeopardized. Although CP marginalization has been discussed in the literature, there are no empirical studies of CP legitimacy. To explore the legitimacy of CP, CP officers from a doctoral extensive land grant institution were interviewed. The analysis of interviews reflected three salient perceptions of CP: (1) In many instances the community did not regard CP as sworn police officers; (2) the public stereotypes CP; and (3) CP have to “sell” their profession to the public. Overall, the interviews indicated that CP perceive some level of marginalization by the public. To confirm the perceptions of CP, a convenience sample of 593 undergraduate students were surveyed. The surveys were used to compare student perceptions of legitimacy between CP and municipal police (MP) at the department and individual officer levels. Results of the surveys indicated that students have lower perceived levels of legitimacy for CP officers compared to MP officers (p=.01). Similarly, students have lower perceived levels of legitimacy for the CP department compared to the MP department (p=.05). Consequently, it appears that the perceptions of CP were justified. Survey results indicated that students do, indeed, perceive CP as a less legitimate law enforcement authority compared to their "mainstream" counterpart. Victor Turner’s theory of liminality was used to explain CP marginalization. Turner describes liminality as a transitional period between two social standings. However, in some instances, a person or group may never transition out of that liminal period. These unfortunate few are consider "permanently" liminal. The analysis of CP interviews and student surveys indicated that CP appear to be "permanently" liminal, trapped in an ambiguous state, "betwixt and between" two social standings.

Betwixt and between: the perceived legitimacy of campus police

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