SecureU - Use of Tasers on College Campuses Highlights Need for Use-of-Force Policies

Published: 10/05/07

Use of Tasers on College Campuses Highlights Need for Use-of-Force Policies
From "After University of Florida Incident, Campus Police Debate Whether to Use Tasers to Subdue Students" by Sara Lipka: Chronicle of Higher Education: A recent highly-publicized use of Tasers by campus police at the University of California in Los Angeles and more recently at the University of Florida has fueled a debate about when force should be used in dealing with students and if Tasers should ever play a role. A 2005 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that about 40 percent of the country's law enforcement agencies carried Tasers. Although no official statistics exist, Princeton University chief of police Steven Healy, a former head of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), says that the percentage is about the same for college police departments.

"There needs to be a policy," says Healy. "It needs to be well thought out, and it needs to be an approach that everyone agrees to." At Princeton, according to Healy, the first intervention when dealing with an unruly student is always made by a student-affairs administrator, who tries to reason with him or her. The next step is gradual involvement of campus police; hasty involvement could lead to a minor situation spiraling quickly out of control. Next comes verbal commands, and finally physical force, which includes escorting the student off the premises.

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