Last week, officers of the Walla Walla Police Department entered a Whitman dormitory and temporarily detained a student suspected of possessing illicit substances. While this is certainly not the first time that the police have been called to intervene in a campus incident, it does raise questions as to the role of the police on campus, and what exactly it is that merits their inclusion.

According to Residence Life sources, the incident began with an RA confronting the student. However, as per campus policy, RAs are required to report any drug-related incidents to campus security. Upon being notified by Residence Life, campus security decided to call the police to further address the issue.

Due to liability reasons, Residence Life was given no choice but to call security once the scope of the issue became clear. It then rests with security to determine if the police need to be contacted.

This is the second time in the past two years that the police have been called to campus housing in order to handle a substance related-issue. In the spring of 2006, the police were called to the Sigma Chi house and a student was arrested. However, this most recent event has even larger implications, since the police were summoned directly by the school.

Students, though, have mixed reactions about the need for police involvement. While some feel safer for the knowledge that the police have a role in campus security, others were disconcerted by the idea of the police entering residence halls and detaining students.

“I mean, it seems excessive for the police to become involved for a non-violent issue like this,” said junior Brian Dafforn. “Then again, we also tend to look at Whitman as this little bubble, and really tend to resent the real world poking its head in. All the same, though, I’d rather not have the police coming around for every little thing. I mean, isn’t that what campus security is for?”

Whitman and other small, secular schools have the advantage of being able to set much more fluid security policies than a larger school, especially one dependant on state funding. Large state universities, for example, have public safety offices that more closely resemble police departments and can issue minor in possession citations and the like to students.

So far this year, Whitman Security has issued 15 warnings for alcohol/marijuana and only one of those has resulted in police action. By comparison, in 2005 the University of Oregon Department of Public Safety arrested 506 individuals for liquor law violations alone and issued an additional 1,519 judicial referrals for the same. An arrest/referral carries much more legal weight than a warning does at Whitman.

Smaller schools such as Whitman have neither the resources nor the day-to-day need for such a force, and are required therefore to rely on the local police for issues that they, legally, do not have the authority to deal with. For example, the recent rash of thefts on campus has been left largely in the hands of the police, as they have the training and resources to deal with such a situation.

Andrew Stokes, senior and vice president of the Inter-Fraternity Council, agreed that the police can be quite helpful for a small campus.

“For larger events, such as the fraternity all-campus parties at the beginning of the year, having the police around is really nice, since such large, open events are the ones most likely to require the presence of authority to keep things under control,” Stokes said.