JBHE recently reported on a new study from Pew Research Center that found a significant share of Black adults in the United States do not trust American police and the criminal justice system. A new study from scholars at the University at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Fredonia has investigated whether this same belief is held by college students from underrepresented groups in regards to campus police.
For their investigation, the authors examined a sample of 400 undergraduate students enrolled at a public university in the northeastern United States to determine if there were any socio-demographic or behavioral correlations with perceptions of university police. The results found students from racial and ethnic minority groups were significantly more likely to mistrust police than their White peers. This belief was also found among self-identified sexual or gender minority students and politically liberal students. Notably, the results found no difference in the perception of campus police between students with or without previous police-initiated contact.
The authors suggest their findings could be explained by a “potential by-product of the broader rhetoric surrounding police-community relationships and racism in higher education.” They believe that further research is needed to better understand the relationship between students and campus police.
