the bureau of Justice statistics just released a new report on campus crime and law enforcement. what can be learned from these data? in comparison to the general population, college campuses have a relatively low rate of violent crime (about 62 per 100,000 population on campus, relative to about 466 per 100,000 in the general population). overall, rates of both violence and property crime declined on campus from 1994 to 2004. in both years, crime rates were significantly higher in private than in public schools, with the private campus violent crime rate actually rising over this period. i’m not sure how to account for this, but i’d imagine there is great heterogeneity within both the private and the public campus categories.

the report shows that NYU had the largest campus law enforcement agency, but that howard university reported the greatest number of sworn officers (those with full arrest powers granted by a state or local government).

top-10 campuses ranked by number of full-time law enforcement employees
345 New York University
235 University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
202 Temple University
200 Howard University
194 University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
190 University of Southern California
180 Michigan State University
170 University of Alabama – Birmingham
156 George Washington University
155 University of Florida

i’d like to see more than the top-10 before drawing any inferences, but east coast universities such as temple and penn appear to hire more sworn officers than universities in the west or midwest. i may end up digging a bit deeper into these data, as there is some talk of expanding campus law enforcement to address security concerns at the minnversity.

top-10 campuses ranked by number of sworn officers
166 Howard University
119 Temple University
100 University of Pennsylvania
97 University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
95 George Washington University
86 University of Florida
79 Georgia State University
78 Yale University
76 University of Maryland – College Park
76 Vanderbilt University