Process Now in Place for 'Armed Police Forces' at MCC, Other Community Colleges

MANCHESTER, CT — The Connecticut Board of Regents now has a formal process in place for community colleges wishing to have "armed police forces" on their campuses.

The vote was Thursday.

Community colleges must submit "a comprehensive application package" that includes an overview of buildings and grounds, police force description, an incident response plan, and a use of force policy, Board of Regents members said in a published overview of the new process.

All armed security officers will be required to be Police Officers Standards Training, or POST certified, according to the overview.

The application packages will be reviewed by a committee comprised of Connecticut State Colleges and Universities legal and human resources staff and then submitted for final approval to the CSCU president, according to the overview.

More details on the approval process can be found here.

“Providing community colleges the option to have special police forces on campus is driven by the desire consistently expressed by students, faculty and staff to feel safe. It is part of our larger approach including reviewing all of our support services and physical infrastructure to ensure we’re doing everything we can to protect the learning environment on all of our campuses,” CSCU President Mark Ojakian said.

Regent Merle Harris, who chairs the regents' Academic and Student Affairs Committee, said, "Our mission is to provide an affordable, accessible, high quality education at all of our institutions. To accomplish this mission, we must foster an environment where students, faculty and staff feel safe. The passage of this thorough approval process moves us in that direction."

Here are some background points of the policy:

• In December of 2015, the Connecticut Board of Regents approved a resolution to allow the Community Colleges to train and authorize their security police officers to carry firearms with designated POST certification.
• In May of this year, the Connecticut General Assembly passed Public Act 16-154 to allow special police forces on CSCU Community College campuses.
• All four state universities — Eastern, Southern, Central and Western — have POST certified security staffers along with the University of Connecticut and Naugatuck Valley Community College.

Photo Credit: Manchester Community College