Q: Who is SLAP? 

SLAP is an alliance of students and graduate workers organizing to stop the creation of an armed private police force at JHU. Canceling the JHPD is a matter of urgency: the price of inaction will be the imposition of an illegitimate, unaccountable, and violent police force threatening students and workers on campus and neighboring communities. We are organizing against the plan because the administration has made clear over the last 5 years that it is unwilling to take seriously the opposition of undergraduates, campus labor, organizers, faculty, and community organizations. We are driven by the all too real threat that a JHPD cop, who will routinely harass students and neighbors of color, will kill someone and be held unaccountable by an undemocratic and corrupt university. 

Q: Does the JHPD already exist? When will they start patrolling?

No, it does not. The administration proposed the private police plan in 2018, but was met with legal obstacles and opposition from community and student organizations. They strategically chose to postpone the plan from 2020-22, in the wake of the 2020 uprisings. This was done to gather the university's forces to impose the plan while hoping student organizers would graduate, burn out, or leave Baltimore. The university now plans to start hiring this Fall semester with the first officers patrolling in Winter 2024. While JHU has over 1,000 security guards patrolling surrounding neighborhoods, they are mostly unarmed and lack the authority to make arrests. Some armed off-duty police officers also make up this security force. 

Q: Why “Students and Labor”?

We began as a core group of graduate workers and undergraduate students engaging in direct action and organizing to stop the JHPD plan. This private police force would stifle activism and labor action on campus while posing a direct threat to the safety of our fellow workers, students, and neighbors. As recent history shows, campus police have consistently been used to threaten and repress student and labor movements. For this reason, we aim to fight against this plan as both students and graduate workers.

Q: Isn’t a private police force going to make campus safer?

No: the crime someone on campus will most likely experience is sexual assault. Yet, according to the MOU, these crimes will be dealt with by the BPD. Likewise, wage-related crimes facing graduate workers will continue to be overlooked and harbored by the administration. More broadly, violent crime rates at Homewood and Peabody campuses are notably low while at the East campus they have been declining since 2018. In fact, the JHPD will make campus more unsafe, given the repression, racial profiling, and police brutality that will come with an armed, unaccountable police force. As outlined by the university, the JHPD will be armed with 9mm handguns with hollow point ammunition, which is considered particularly inhumane for the amount of damage it causes to human bodies. Alongside this they will be equipped with unspecified "patrol rifles." Since these guns will require 5.56 ammunition, they are more aptly referred to as assault rifles. This is in the context of decreasing crime rates on campus and widespread opposition to the plan.

Q: What about off-campus crime?

JHPD will be prohibited by state law from patrolling any property not owned or operated by the university. Rather they will act as first responder for calls within the “campus area” that require a police response and maintain arrest powers in these situations. In turn, BPD will continue to patrol these areas and remain ineffective at reducing crime in them. However, police themselves do not stop crimes, they are never present at the moment of a crime. In fact, most police work does not involve responding to violent crime but consists of traffic stops and non-criminal service calls. Again, an unhindered police force will present itself as a danger to students and community members off-campus.

Q: Don’t we need a private police force to deal with dangerous situations?

As the MOU shows, the plan states that BPD will continue to handle violent crime on campus. On top of this, there is a lack of evidence that shows armed police are effective at reducing such crime on campuses. Armed police are more likely to escalate situations where police are not needed, such as situations involving mental health, and lead to additional violence. 

Q: What is your answer to public safety?

Police interfere with our ability to advocate for our own safety and interests. The JHPD will give the administration even more power to retaliate against campus organizing. In addition, the plan would make campus even more unsafe for community members. Prior abuses of power, like Ron Daniel’s intimidation campaign against Tawanda Jones, of the West Wednesday Coalition, will grow more frequent with the JHPD. In sharp contrast to the JHPD plan, we argue that policies designed to address on- and off-campus safety should have the democratic involvement of students and affected neighborhoods. Rather than cheap talk of “tackling the root causes” we call for an immediate transformation of JHU’s parasitic relationship with Baltimore and a democratization of the university and the resources it has hoarded for generations. 

Q: If a private police force won’t make campus safer, why is Hopkins creating one?

Ahead of the 2019 legislative session, when Ron Daniels began individually lobbying elected officials to support the JHPD plan, the administration named trustees, alumni, and parents (“who are part of the Johns Hopkins community but may live out of state”) as its strongest supporters. Against this administration beholden to interests far beyond the concerns of students and the people of Baltimore, no student-led or campus labor organizations have expressed support for the proposed private police force while faculty has consistently voiced its opposition. 

Q: Isn’t JHPD supposed to be better than Baltimore Police Department (BPD)? Can we reform JHPD?

Despite Bard’s claim that this will be the nation’s most progressive police force, the MOU fails to mention any training beyond what is standard with BPD, outlines they will be hiring ex-BPD officers, and highlights the usage of controversial body cameras. In many ways, JHPD will resemble BPD without any of the provisions for community control. Officers will act as private workers beholden only to their employer, JHU. The disgraced accountability board, which has been unable to assert any authority over the formulation of the JHPD, shows that once formed, the JHPD will be wholly unaccountable. And as the history of policing shows, reform itself has never been an antidote to racial profiling and police brutality. 

Q: What will it take to stop JHPD?

We will organize against the administration's attempts to form the JHPD until it is fully canceled. In doing so, SLAP continues a struggle which has existed since the university first presented this plan. As the sit-in of 2019, mobilization during the 2020, the fluorescence of mutual aid networks during the pandemic, disrupted MOU town halls, and recent efforts against the GRO show, students have been critical in halting implementation of the JHPD. As students and graduate workers we are essential in stopping this plan. Through organization and direct action, in collaboration with community organizations and organized labor, the JHPD can and will be canceled. We base our approach on the concrete analysis of the forces in favor of this violent police force. This involves the development of strategies and tactics as dynamic and sophisticated as the administration’s. Only an organized student body building popular power both on-campus can make this happen. No better time than to start now! 

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