Over 150 Years, Public Safety at Princeton Evolved Into Policing

It would be unusual to see a Princeton Public Safety officer wearing a bowler hat or fedora in 2025. But for many decades, the look was nearly ubiquitous as men patrolled the campus.

The University first created a campus safety position in 1876, starting with a lone person known as the “proctor.” His role was generally to discourage the hooliganism that came with running a school that had grown to include more than 300 young men.

Today, Public Safety (PSafe, to students) includes sworn New Jersey police officers who have the power to arrest students and enforce the law — perhaps most notably observed during the occupation of Clio Hall last spring.

But how did campus safety go from James Cagney dopplegängers tasked with escorting women out of dormitories after hours to licensed law enforcement officers who arrest students?

Much of the transformation took place following a reorganization and name change in 1985. When the University merged the Emergency Services Unit of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) into the University’s security department, it expanded that department’s responsibilities to include fire, rescue, and hazardous material containment.

“These new duties mean that the department’s services are more comprehensive than indicated by the word ‘security,’” an article in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin explained in May 1985.

Now, Public Safety officers are required to undergo training at a New Jersey accredited police academy. Those who do are recognized as sworn police officers in the state of New Jersey, wear an orange stripe down their pant legs, and have a badge.

These officers are granted police authority — including the power to arrest — and are also subject to all state laws regarding law enforcement officers. This includes the New Jersey requirement for officers to wear body cameras while performing official duties.

University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill told PAW that Public Safety officers are “unarmed on a daily basis” but “have access to a police service rifle in limited situations,” including in an active shooter situation. The police officers are required to undergo firearm training and requalify several times each year, according to Morrill.

Not all the officers at PSafe are sworn police officers — some are security officers who patrol Firestone Library or the art museum. The new art museum (scheduled to open in the fall) is also one of the reasons that the staff of PSafe has grown from 106 to 160 employees in recent years.

Sean Ryder, the department’s lieutenant for community relations, told PAW that he considers Public Safety officers to be “community caretakers.”

“Particularly when we look at this generation of young people and their needs and everything that they’re being exposed to, and the rate of change around that exposure, we cannot rely on the fact that what we’ve done in the past has always worked,” Ryder said.

Hats and suits were once standard wear for Princeton proctors. Here, the proctors question visiting students from Penn, circa 1947.

Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Public Safety’s role on campus was in the spotlight last spring during the encampment run by pro-Palestinian protestors. Two graduate students were arrested by officers while attempting to construct tents the day the encampment was established. A few days later, when students staged a sit-in at Clio Hall, officers made 13 arrests, handcuffing some of the grad students, undergrads, and a seminary student with zip ties. Those who weren’t taken into custody at the scene had to report to PSafe headquarters at 200 Elm Drive later that day. Several Princeton Police officers were called to the scene but did not take action.

In October, the graduate students who were arrested for attempting to erect tents pleaded guilty to violating a noise ordinance and paid a fine.

The University initially announced that the 13 students arrested following the occupation of Clio Hall would be offered a chance to partake in a “restorative justice process” alongside the University disciplinary process. But The Daily Princetonian reported in November that that process “quickly collapsed.” The Clio defendants are likely to go to trial as Judge John McCarthy III ’69 refused to accept pleas from students who wanted to take a deal at court dates in October and November.

According to the University’s 2024 annual safety report, Public Safety has agreements with Princeton Police, Plainsboro Police, and West Windsor Police that allow them to keep “each other apprised of important information about crimes and criminal trends.”

Public Safety also runs the “Community Partnership Initiative” (CPI), which is meant to facilitate relationships between officers and students. Officers meet with student clubs and teams every four to six weeks and are typically experienced or interested in the sport or activity that the team or club participates in.

“It’s providing that conduit for information sharing so the students … become familiar with at least one particular officer, at least one, and the officer can share information with the club,” Ryder said.

Ryder said that no clubs have ever outright rejected the offer, but some clubs never reply to the initial email sent by an officer.

Public Safety has also conducted a program with the eating clubs since 2015 in which officers are assigned to each club. Eating clubs fall under the jurisdiction of the Princeton Police Department — not Public Safety. The goal of the program is, again, to create relationships between students and officers.

“Generally speaking, we keep an open line of communication between our assigned PSafe officer and the club officers whose portfolios overlap the most with them,” Vincent Jiang ’25, president of the Interclub Council, wrote to PAW.

“We never want to overextend,” Ryder said, explaining that certain spaces belong to students. “So eating clubs, we have to be invited there. The eating clubs fall outside of our jurisdiction.”

Most of these initiatives are relatively new, started in the past decade. But Public Safety is a frequent subject of campus criticism. Students have alleged racial discrimination, including racial profiling, by the organization over the years. Following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2020, and the racial justice protests that followed, The Daily Princetonian editorial board published a piece arguing that Public Safety should cut ties with the Princeton Police Department and employ social workers and mental health specialists to deal with some of the incidents Public Safety is called to respond to.

According to Morrill, more than 18 sworn officers have attended crisis intervention training. (There are 27 sworn officers listed in the PSafe directory).

“We regularly have additional staff participate annually, with an ultimate goal of having all sworn staff undergo CIT,” Morrill wrote in an email to PAW.

Amber Rahman ’25, the leader of Princeton Students Against Policing, which is part of SPEAR (Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform), said, “Especially in the recent years, we have often seen the role of PSafe become one that is essentially to enforce the will of the University when it comes to protesting in particular.”

Rahman said she started to notice an “increasing presence” of Public Safety at protests since she started attending Princeton.

“I feel like I’ve seen that role only expand when it has come to the pro-Palestine movement on campus,” said Rahman.

At an Undergraduate Student Government meeting on Nov. 24, associate director of administration Bryant Blount ’08 and Ryder presented on PSafe’s role, including discussing allegations that PSafe has the ability to surveil the campus Wi-Fi network.

The Prince reported that Ryder said, “In terms of whether or not we have access to networks for investigations, without going into specifics … there may be times when we can seek access to those. But it’s not as straightforward as logging on and starting looking. We have to go through a series of permissions.”