Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies, 2021-2022: [United States] (ICPSR 39452)

Version Date: Dec 11, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39452.v1

Version V1

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Alternate Title

SCLEA 2021

Summary

These data are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) 2021- 2022 Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies (SCLEA). The 2021 SCLEA was conducted as a census of campus law enforcement agencies serving public and private 4-year and 2-year institutions offering in-person instruction with more than 1,000 full-time students. Respondents provided data on agency personnel, functions, technology and communication, training, and equipment and techniques. BJS also conducted surveys of campus law enforcement agencies covering the 1994-95 (ICPSR 6846), 2004-05 (ICPSR 27261), and 2011-12 (ICPSR 36217) school years. The reports produced from these surveys are available on the BJS Web site and data are available on the ICPSR Web site.

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies, 2021-2022: [United States]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-12-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39452.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

city

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2021 -- 2022

Date of Collection

2021-11 -- 2022-07
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Study Design

The frame for the 2021 SCLEA survey was compiled using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). From this system, BJS identified all 4-year and 2-year institutions offering in-person instruction with more than 1,000 full-time students. Law enforcement agency contact information was derived from the BJS Law Enforcement Agency Roster (LEAR) database, a list of all publicly funded law enforcement agencies operating in the United States. The LEAR is compiled from a variety of sources, including the 2008, 2014, and 2018 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies. The LEAR undergoes periodic updates to capture newly created agencies and to remove closed agencies and agencies that are no longer in scope.

Sample

The initial 2021 SCLEA frame included 1,954 campus law enforcement agencies. SCLEA agencies were further categorized into groups, or strata, based on full-time student enrollment (1,000 to 2,499 students or 2,500 or more students), institution funding type (public or private), and institution type (4-year or 2-year). After completing the 2021 SCLEA survey, 171 agencies were determined to be ineligible based on their responses, which indicated that they did not operate a campus law enforcement agency, they operated under the central administrative structure of another agency, or they did not employ at least one full-time equivalent sworn officer or nonsworn operations personnel. After removing these agencies, the final count of eligible campus law enforcement agencies was 1,783.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

All public and private 4-year and 2-year institutions in the United States offering in-person instruction with more than 1,000 full-time students

Unit(s) of Observation

Agencies

Data Source

Self-enumerated questionnaires

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Response Rates

Of the 1,783 eligible campus law enforcement agencies, 1,506 submitted their SCLEA questionnaires, for an overall response rate of 84.5%. Submitted surveys were considered complete if at least 66% of the questionnaire was filled out. A total of 1,429 campus law enforcement agencies completed SCLEA questionnaires, for an overall completion rate of 80.1%.

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Original Release Date

2025-12-11

Version History

2025-12-11 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Standardized missing values.
  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Weight

Final weights adjusting for agencies who did not respond within strata defined by institution funding type (public or private), institution type (4-year or 2-year), and full-time enrollment size are included in the variable WTFINAL "Final_Weight".

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.