“But I’m Standing Inside Right Now and I Need Help”: Security Projects and the Perceptions Of Campus Security

Andrea Corradi,James Popham,Carrie B Sanders

doi:10.21428/88de04a1.0a0f9aa6

Andrea Corradi, James Popham + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.0a0f9aa6

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Abstract

Acts of violence at institutions of higher education have been heavily publicized, leading security on post-secondary campuses to become a hotbed issue in the media and in the daily lives of those who attend them. With extensive media coverage of events such as the attack on Jeanne Clery, and the mass shootings at Northern Illinois University, Dawson College, and Virginia Tech, many post-secondary schools are working to enhance their security practices. The present study uses Valverde’s (2001; 2008; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2014) security projects framework to examine the lived experiences of security measures on a Canadian urban-integrated campus. Through semi-structured interviews with administrators, campus police officers, students, and faculty, and constructivist grounded theorizing, this study provides an in-depth examination of security from multiple perspectives within one institution. Specifically, the study explores how the jurisdiction and logic of security projects have shaped perceptions of safety and security on campus. The resultant negative interactions of this jurisdictional model have affected the way students viewed security on campus and threatened the students’ perception of the campus police.

Highlights

University campuses are synonymous with learning, youth, freedom, and expression
“But I’m Standing Inside and I Need Help”: Security Projects and the Perceptions Of Campus Security misrepresentation of post-secondary violence has led to the emergence and implementation of new security practices across American and Canadian postsecondary campuses
We present the three main findings of this research: 1) The understanding of what campus entailed differed between students and the university; 2) these differing understandings contributed toward conflict between the students and campus security measures, campus police; and 3) these conflicts and competing understandings led to negative views of campus security and of the campus police

Summary

Introduction

University campuses are synonymous with learning, youth, freedom, and expression. More recently, they have become associated with a series of tragic events and the resultant need for increased security. Keele (2004) argues that crime characterizes the post-secondary experience and that post-Columbine and 9/11, violence on campus has become normalized. University campuses are synonymous with learning, youth, freedom, and expression They have become associated with a series of tragic events and the resultant need for increased security. As Schildkraut (2016) explains, the coverage of violence on campuses is often skewed, overemphasizing perpetrators, focusing on sensational incidents, and representing the number of victims without context of larger crime patterns. Such “But I’m Standing Inside and I Need Help”: Security Projects and the Perceptions Of Campus Security misrepresentation of post-secondary violence has led to the emergence and implementation of new security practices across American and Canadian postsecondary campuses. Missing from much of this research is both an in-depth understanding of campus security within a Canadian context and from the lived experiences of different levels of stakeholders (Bosselait, 2010; Gilmore 2016; Matt, 2017)

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