Campus Safety
On February 3, the House passed the Campus Safety Act, H.R. 748, which is designed to enable our colleges and universities to easily obtain the best information available on how to keep their campuses safe and how to respond in the event of a campus emergency. The House passed a similar bill on September 27, 2008. The Senate, however, never acted upon it.
There is nothing more important than ensuring that our young people attending our colleges and universities are kept safe. Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have seen a number of violent incidents occur at our colleges and universities, including the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. Those tragedies highlighted the need to provide information on how to prevent such violence and also how to respond most effectively.
This bill responds to that need by creating a National Center for Campus Public Safety, which will be administered through the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The Center will train campus public safety agencies, encourage research to strengthen college safety and security, and serve as a clearinghouse for the dissemination of relevant campus public safety information.
The National Center for Campus Public Safety established under the bill would be charged with the following:
- Providing training for campus public safety and mental health agencies;
- Researching campus safety and security measures;
- Developing plans, in conjunction with the Homeland Security and Education departments, to deal with natural and man-made emergencies involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of campuses;
- Promoting the development and dissemination of effective behavioral threat assessment;
- Coordinating the dissemination of campus safety information;
- Promoting interagency coordination in campus safety information; and
- Providing annual reports to Congress on the center’s campus safety initiatives.
The bill permits the Center to award grants to institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations to assist in carrying out its responsibilities.