Private colleges and universities in Arkansas will soon be able to have their own police forces on campus after Gov. Mike Beebe and the Senate approved a new legislation.
On April 17 Public Safety was notified that two students were the victims of an armed robbery that occurred on Oak Street near Walgreens. The Searcy Police Department had one of the suspects in custody within an hour of the robbery. The incident is still under investigation, and more arrests are expected in the case.
For the last few years, Harding University’s Department of Public Safety worked with Sen. Mark Biviano to push for a change in the law allowing schools such as Harding to have a police department on campus.
The bill will go into effect nine weeks after the legislative session ends, sometime in late July or early August, but it will then be the decision of individual universities whether or not they want to use police on campus.
Some of the benefits of having police on campus would be giving Harding access to the Arkansas Police Training Academy and use of various criminal databases. According to Director of Public Safety Craig Russell, it would also give the university better control of traffic on campus. However, it will be up to future president Dr. Bruce McClarty if he wants to see these changes on campus.
“We would still have non-police personnel and then a small number of sworn officers,” Russell said. “We could probably on-send one or two or maybe three people at a time to the 12-week program at the training academy.”
According to Russell, there is no one event or incident that prompted Harding to push for this bill. In fact, the department has been discussing the potential of police on campus for the last 15 or so years.
“Campus is not any less safe than it was last year or any time before,” Russell said. “Part of my job is being attuned to what is happening on campus, in our community, across the nation and even globally that might affect the safety of those who are part of the Harding community.”
Russell did note that what happens in the Searcy community can affect what happens on Harding’s campus.
Once McLarty takes over the presidency, the topic will go into more discussion on whether this will be implemented on campus in the near future.
