9 Changes We Will Soon See in Campus Policing and Public Safety

According to a wide range of college campus public safety professionals, police departments will experience the following changes in the next decade.
Published: July 26, 2024

If you thought the changes campus police have experienced over the past few years were significant, you haven’t seen anything yet. Policing has become the epicenter of recent social and cultural shifts. This upheaval has led many to leave the field, while those remaining struggle to adapt.

Predicting the future of policing is precarious due to the numerous influences at play. To navigate these influences, workshops were conducted to gather insights, broaden perspectives, and prepare leaders for the next decade’s evolving landscape of policing.

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At last year’s Campus Safety Conferences, attendees from college and university police and security organizations were invited to examine the history of U.S. municipal and campus policing, current influencing factors, and predictions from various fields that will undoubtedly shape the future of policing.

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Participants first delved into the history of policing to understand the factors that have shaped American law enforcement. Some influences were reactions to external changes, while others were self-initiated, often with unintended consequences.

Participants considered predictions for the next ten years in population, health, business, technology, science, higher education, and law enforcement. These predictions were notably technology-oriented but also encompassed social and economic changes driven by an aging and shrinking population, immigration, evolving business and healthcare models, shifts in educational influences, the expanding use of artificial intelligence, and associated potential financial and legal implications.

9 Campus Policing Changes We Can Expect to See in the Next 10 Years

Several key themes emerged from their deliberations regarding the future of policing:

  1. Greater Agility Needed by Top Administrators: Top public safety and security administrators will need to adapt quickly and embrace flexibility with a departure from the traditional approach of lengthy studies and pilot programs. This shift may pose challenges for larger and more tradition-bound administrations.
  2. Diminished Role of Hierarchies: This need for innovation will require a departure from the practice of running new ideas up the chain of command, reliance on narrowly focused experts with strictly defined areas of responsibility, and personnel staying in their respective lanes. Technological advancements, millennial expectations, and a growing knowledge gap between those in authority and those on the “front lines” will challenge organization cultures, communications, and patterns of authority.
  3. Increased Civilianization: Advancements in technology and the reliance on specialists in fast-moving areas of expertise may reduce the need for sworn staff while increasing the support and decision-making roles of civilian specialists. Sworn officers will remain essential for on-site response, de-escalation, detainment, and arrest. However, many tasks related to crime response, victim and suspect identification, and management will increasingly be performed by civilian staff operating information and analytical technologies.
  4. Changing Physical Fitness Standards: Physical fitness requirements are expected to decrease as the labor pool shrinks and technology levels the playing field. Traditional fitness tests like running 1.5 miles in a set time and doing pushups may be eroded to attract needed personnel with specialized areas of expertise. This trend would result in more bifurcated police departments.
  5. Increased Specialization: The heavy reliance on technology will demand greater specialization among officers and civilian personnel and mechanisms to integrate both. Policing will increasingly involve more specialized equipment, such as drones, video surveillance, and artificial intelligence tools, shifting away from the “Jack (and Jill) of all trades” officer model. Additionally, protocols will need to be developed to exploit the expected deluge of information in a more timely and focused manner.
  6. Further Blurring of Public/Private Relationships: The dependence on technology will strain law enforcement budgets, leading to the collection of data by private industries to which law enforcement has traditionally not had access due to privacy concerns. This will necessitate a closer collaboration between the public and private sectors. It will also generate new privacy concerns, many of which are currently protected by constitutional guarantees.
  7. Consolidation and Integration of Law Enforcement Agencies: Funding technology will consume a significantly larger portion of police budgets. Agencies may need to consolidate and share resources to manage the financial burden of acquiring accelerating and more costly technologies with shorter life spans while maintaining adaptability to meet customer needs.
  8. Faster Changes and Adaptation: The rapid pace of change will require agencies to move swiftly, with officers embracing ambiguity and leadership focusing on policy development to address these changes. As new technologies are implemented, with their attendant cultural and organizational changes, relatively stable policies, such as general orders, will require ongoing evaluation and modification.
  9. Increased Emphasis on Social Skills: While technological proficiency is vital, human interaction and service will and should remain at the core of the law enforcement mission. Changes in technology have shaped societal communications and have led to recruits with diminished social skills. It is likely that social media, through its isolation of our youth, have undermined face-to-face communications and written skills, resilience, and conflict resolution abilities. Agencies will need to provide individual communication training to ensure effective policing.

The next decade is poised to bring significant and turbulent technological and demographic changes to every sector and undertaking within our society. It is quite likely that the next decade will occasion more change than the last hundred years.

Related Article: Reacting with More Law Enforcement Is Not the Way to Secure Schools

Policing, like all industries, will need to become more proactive and less risk averse to evolve in response. Law enforcement will need to accept the fact that sacred cows (many of their traditions) make great hamburger! Acknowledging the impending transformations, understanding their origins, and identifying the key influencers will prepare law enforcement agencies to navigate the forthcoming wave of change and maintain its proud commitment to public service.


Daniel A. Dusseau is the retired chief of police/director of public safety for the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) Police Department and is now owner of Dusseau Solutions LLC.  John M. Weinstein PhD is a retired lieutenant for NOVA and now is a consultant with Dusseau Solutions.

Note: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety.

Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series
Strategy & Planning Series