Dive Brief:

• The jurisdiction of campus police nationwide is expanding into surrounding neighborhoods.
• Supporters of this trend say it allows more flexibility when investigating campus crimes committed by community members, lets campus police keep an eye on students who cause trouble off-campus and can lessen the workload of municipal police departments.
• But some plans for expansion of authority have raised issues of lower training requirements for university police officers and a lack of transparency compared to public police agencies.

Dive Insight:

One place this debate is playing out right now is Washington, D.C., where a group of schools is evaluating whether to give campus police wider boundaries of authority. A proposal would give university police jurisdiction over streets running through campus and sidewalks across from campus. Some residents near George Washington University are opposed.