Campus police describe staffing challenges
For 10 years, Slippery Rock University has been short two campus police officers.
That could change with a $21,000 state grant awarded in December. Chief Kevin Sharkey said he hopes the funds will help sponsor applicants through the police academy and offset equipment costs for new hires.
SRU’s police department currently staffs four supervisors and eight officers, Sharkey said. With funds awarded through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency's Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the department aims to soon fill two officer positions.
The chief said he hopes to interview one applicant soon, although recruitment remains a challenge. As of Tuesday, Jan. 9, the department has not seen any applicants for the second position, Sharkey said.
He said he noticed a declining number of applicants in the last few years.
“Nobody — nobody is applying right now,” Sharkey said.
“I would say in the last five years — three to five years — it's been narrowing down,” he said.
SRU’s police department was one of 20 law enforcement agencies named as a grant recipient in December. The $21,000 state grant was made possible through $19 million in grant funds approved for disbursement by the PA Commission on Crime and Delinquency chaired by Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis.
More than 90 local nonprofits, including faith-based institutions that could be targets for hate crimes, received $5 million in funding; 20 law enforcement agencies will receive more than $1 million in recruitment grants, according to the Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
According to Sharkey, funding is commonly put toward mental health training and equipment to help increase police visibility on campus.
One of the unique challenges encountered by campus police is serving an ever-changing population.
“When you work in a municipality, you may have somebody that lives at a residence ... for 20 years,” he said. “We always have new faces here ... dealing with students, you kind of get to know them after their fourth year and then boom, they're gone. And we're always rotating people in and out. So that's always kind of a challenge for us.”
“We do everything that a municipal police officer would do, but it's just that our jurisdiction is the university,” Sharkey said. “We respond to calls, we investigate crimes, we cite arrests and do traffic enforcement.”
Aside from recruitment, retainment is also an issue, Sharkey said, noting pay and benefits for campus police are lower than that of their municipal counterparts.
“Some of us who've been here for a while, we’re staying because we're close to that retirement with our pensions and stuff,” he said. “Newer officers, they don't have the same benefits as we do in the state. So that's ... a contributing factor for them to move on. And plus, with the pay, we fall behind our municipal counterparts too, and that deters people from staying also.”
Sharkey said when it comes to campus policing, patience is key.
“You’re out there with the community,” said Lieutenant Tyler Gray. “It’s a lot of community-oriented policing — there’s a lot more to the job than just the law enforcement aspect when you’re on campus.”
