Theses and Dissertations

Brad D. Boggs

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Davis, James E.

Committee Member

Wiseman, William W.

Committee Member

Stonecypher, Wayne

Committee Member

Scaggs, William

Date of Degree

12-15-2012

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Community College Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Educational Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to provide an assessment of campus police departments throughout the 15 public community and junior colleges in Mississippi. This research could provide Mississippi community and junior college administrators the opportunity to observe and appraise the overall safety of their respective campuses in comparison to safety practices of the other campus police departments in the state. This study will lay the foundation for further research of campus police departments and can assist administrators and boards of trustees of Mississippi’s public community and junior colleges with annual and long-range planning efforts. This study included campus police/security departments in all of Mississippi’s public community and junior colleges. Data were collected to provide an overview of police/security departments at Mississippi’s public community and junior colleges. A portion of the study contains information/data gathered from a random sample of students at one rural, public community college in the northern region of Mississippi concerning campus safety and their satisfaction of services provided by campus police. The researcher utilized a mixed-methods design to study existing descriptive information pertaining to the 15 Mississippi public community and junior college campus police departments, existing crime statistics reported by each public community and junior college in Mississippi, and existing data gathered by the Itawamba Community College administration from their students concerning their perception of campus police and safety issues. The researcher created a composite student satisfaction score and utilized a one-way ANOVA to determine the significance level of student perception concerning campus police and safety issues. In answering the research questions, the researcher discovered that Mississippi community and junior college campus police/security reported less favorable attitudes pertaining to funding and staffing their respective departments and positive attitudes pertaining to their ability to attend and provide training opportunities. The researcher found that Mississippi public community and junior college campuses seem to be safe, reporting low crime statistics in the Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool. Lastly, the researcher discovered that student satisfaction of campus police and safety issues at one rural Northeast Mississippi community college increased from 2007 to 2011.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/19674

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