Brown University security has come in for criticism after a mass shooting that killed two and injured nine, because reportedly the attacker was able to enter and exit the campus building without being recorded inside. Although he was eventually found dead by his own hand, for days the college and the city were in fear of an armed murderer at large.
Like every other college despite protests to the contrary, Brown is ultimately a faceless, impersonal, cold, and calculating institution whose top priority is protecting its own corporate interests. Brown, because it is a private rather than a public school, is unusually insular and isolated from the community, even claiming exemption from state law that requires public accountability for the actions of the campus police — who are allowed to make arrests, file criminal charges, and carry firearms to the same extent as city police. (Disclosure: I am with the ACLU currently suing Brown University to compel compliance with state law and prohibit secret arrests.) Brown and every one of its components, including the Brown Public Safety Department, exist less to protect students than to protect the institution.
Nearly all of the criticism is grounded in fundamental misunderstandings. Most importantly, despite disproportionate publicity, mass shootings are extremely rare, and the chance of a student being shot to death in school is statistically comparable to being killed by a lightning strike. But all schools, including Brown, design their security not to protect students but primarily to escape blame and liability, and they do so because of incentives that society has chosen to provide.
The Clery Act is a 1990 federal law that imposes reporting requirements on all colleges receiving government money, which is essentially all of them. Named for a student who was raped and murdered in a dormitory in 1986, the practical effect has been to force colleges to defensively overwarn about such risks. Of course, sexual assault is horrifyingly common in college settings, although individual murder occurs far less commonly and mass shootings are orders of magnitude less common than that. It is therefore reasonable for security cameras and controlled access to be deployed in dormitory settings rather than lecture halls or public corridors.
Nor is it desirable to turn schools into Orwellian nightmares of constant and universal surveillance, where students and faculty would have to be careful that Big Brother is always watching, itself imposing psychological trauma that would severely impair academic freedom where members of the intellectual community should be willing to share ideas and speak freely and openly.
In the particular case of the Barus and Holley Building, it has a direct entrance and exit to Hope Street that the suspect used, easily accessible from the large lecture hall where the Brown shooting occurred. That area was not under intense surveillance because, not only was it assessed as low risk for good reason, but doing so would subject ordinary citizens off-campus to the same surveillance.
While we do not know why the suspect took a leave of absence from his physics PhD program in only his second semester in Spring 2001, before finally withdrawing in 2003, it would be consistent with him reporting or being reported for mental illness issues. Colleges, hardly only Brown, prioritize getting rid of students who manifest psychological problems, even if they beg for help, with the motive of escaping liability if the student commits suicide.
A major concern of Brown’s is financial: an outsized fraction of Providence land is owned by non-profits and thereby exempt from property tax. Over 39% of Providence property is exempt, compared to 27% in Worcester, 19% in Springfield, 17% in New Bedford, and 12% in Brockton. Brown makes voluntary “payments in lieu of taxes,” but the amount is far less than what would be due if its assets were taxable. The figures are not yet calculated, but there is no doubt the value of services provided as a result of the mass shooting, even in terms of police and fire-rescue support, will be enormous. It may seem crass to look at a mass shooting from a bean-counting perspective, especially since Brown never wanted such a thing and the city was protecting everyone beyond just the campus, but the costs still must be paid. Brown, because its vast property holdings are tax exempt, effectively shifts all of these costs incurred by the city onto residents and other taxpayers. While it would be unfair to expect Brown to pay the actual costs of the response to the shooting, just as it would be unfair to expect the owner of a house that burns down to pay for the firefighting, the burden should be shared appropriately.
Brown security, from surveillance camera placement to conduct of campus police, should be understood in this context. How could an armed shooter enter and exit a campus building that was reportedly unlocked without being recorded on video? Brown made decisions, ultimately reasonable and rational decisions, guided by a goal of diverting blame for statistically likely risks, such as sexual assault in a dormitory, rather than infinitesimally unlikely ones, such as a mass shooting in a lecture hall. Criticism should not paint Brown into a corner where they defensively adopt draconian surveillance and turn the campus and (even worse) surrounding neighborhoods into a police state: colleges, including Brown, inevitably do exactly and precisely what we give them incentives to do.
The main intended value of surveillance is deterrence: rational actors will want to avoid getting caught, but a suicidal murderer cannot be deterred by consequences. Installing cameras everywhere will not make anyone safer, but only make it easier to clean up the mess afterward.