By: Parker Wright
While university and rural law enforcement serve different communities, officers say local culture, resources, and public trust define their roles more than their badges.
There are more than 18,000 police departments and over 3,000 sheriffs across the United States. That’s not counting hundreds of state troopers, federal agents, private security forces, and state and school public safety officers.
In recent years, national focus has fallen on big city police departments across the country due to the debate surrounding police reform. This has resulted in departments that make more personal community connections being overlooked. The question is: what is it like to be an officer at a school or a rural, close-knit community?
East Coast to Midwest: University police
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 75% of colleges and universities in the U.S. have their own police department, office of public safety, or security force. Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, is no different. The school has its own Department of Public Safety.
Drake’s Public Safety Director, Scott Law, explained that a public safety officer differs from a police officer in many ways, the biggest being training.
“Police officers swear an oath and have full police power. They carry firearms and are under state law as police officers,” Law said. “Security officers are civilians, so they are not sworn officers.”
Before working at Drake University, Law was a police officer at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York. Unlike Drake, Stony Brook has its own police department on a campus with over 35,000 students—nearly seven times the size of Drake.
Law said the biggest issues he dealt with at Stony Brook were usually internal to campus. It was rare for someone from off-campus to cause issues, whereas at Drake, given the school’s geography, it’s more common.
“Stony Brook was a very large campus. It was well-defined. You weren’t just wandering around like, ‘Oh, I’m in the middle of Stony Brook’s campus.’ That didn’t really happen,” Law said. “[Drake is] a very open campus. You can very easily be walking down the street as a non-Drake person, and before you know it, you’re walking across our campus.”
Law explained that Drake Public Safety works very closely with the Des Moines Police Department and has an “exceptional relationship,” employing roughly 50 officers in various roles around campus.
The Des Moines Police Academy collaborates with Drake in training public safety officers, and Law teaches classes at the academy for police recruits on race, racism, and implicit bias in policing.
According to Law, community relations between law enforcement and the students at both universities were good. However, there are significant differences due to size and location. Law said he’s developed better relationships with the students and faculty at Drake than at Stony Brook.
“The students at Stony Brook, because it was an actual police officer they were speaking to, were more hesitant. They went to the counseling center or residence life instead,” Law said. “Here at Drake, it’s a much different experience. At least in my experience when I first got here, I was shocked by some things that students would come to talk to me about because I’m not a sworn officer and they know I don’t [legally] have to do anything.”
Law likes the atmosphere of Drake and Des Moines more than Stony Brook and Long Island. While it may be stereotypical, the people of the Midwest are much nicer and more understanding than those on the East Coast.
Regardless, Law continues to educate himself in law enforcement practices no matter where he works, and students play a major role in that.
“Listening to students is probably one of the best things we can do for a lot of reasons,” Law said. “Sometimes, you’re gonna get your best ideas from them. Sometimes you’re gonna find out where things are falling short.”
Law has also helped improve Drake’s Public Safety since he arrived. After using the RAVE Guardian app at Stony Brook, he incorporated it at Drake. He also helped upgrade the Safe Ride Bus — a free mode of transportation provided by the university that picks up and drops off students around campus and the surrounding neighborhood — even though he thought it would be a failure at first.
Rural policing: Less money, less people, less interest
Campus policing varies by school and school size, but rural policing is a much more universal experience, especially compared to urban departments.
It’s no secret that smaller towns and rural counties have smaller public services, including law enforcement. This past summer, the town of Lansing in northeast Iowa disbanded its police department. The town of just under 1,000 people saw its officers leave for other jobs.
The city explained that every officer resigned for different positions in bigger towns nearby.
“Until we can hire staff to replace the three departing individuals, law enforcement services will be provided by the Allamakee County Sheriff’s office,” Mayor Micheal Verdon said in a statement.
When contacted for additional comment, Mayor Verdon declined to discuss the matter further.
Lansing isn’t the only rural community losing its police force. According to the FBI, nearly 300 towns with populations under 2,000 across the United States have disbanded their police departments since 2019. Reasons vary, but retired Greene County, Iowa, Sheriff Steve Haupert believes politics has played a role.
“I think what has happened in the last few years surrounding defunding police has hurt everyone,” Haupert said. “I don’t care if you’re urban, rural, or whatever; it has had a negative effect on law enforcement. It has made it real tough to hire quality people.”
He believes fewer people are applying out of fear due to the national debate around policing in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis, and others around the country.
“Those officers did some really bad things I completely disagree with, and they have hurt the reputation of those of us genuinely trying to do good,” Haupert said.
A lower number of applicants hurts the already small departments that cover more ground in rural areas than urban ones.
“Larger city police departments have two police officers in one squad car; that’s how it goes in the larger metropolitan areas. In a rural setting, the deputy is pretty much by himself,” Haupert said. “If you’re on the night shift, we do have overlap in shifts, but in a 12-hour shift through the night, there might be four to six hours that you’re covering a county by yourself, so it’s a little riskier.”
Haupert echoed Law’s sentiment that smaller communities allow for better community and law enforcement relations.
He said it’s nice getting to know each family he serves on a personal level. This gives him background on people for when he does get a call to a residence — relationships not seen much with bigger city police. However, knowing everyone isn’t always a positive thing.
“There’s a saying at the [Iowa] Law Enforcement Academy:
‘Half of your friends will cease to exist, and the other half won’t want to talk to you,’”
Haupert said. “So when you put on the badge, it’s a different game. That’s why you’ll see officers and their families usually only associate with other officers and their families. No one else wants to be associated with a cop.”
Haupert believes urban and rural law enforcement can learn something from each other, but each is important and good in its own environment.
“You take a larger city officer and bring him out to the sheriff’s office, it may seem pretty dull for him,” Haupert said. “At the same time, I don’t think all my deputies could handle the extreme environment urban areas may have. There’s danger everywhere; it’s just a different setting and population.”
Regardless of politics and debates, one consensus shared between Haupert and Law is there’s something special about the Midwest community. Whether it’s the police or the community, everyone will always have each others’ backs.