Frequently Asked Questions

The Johns Hopkins University Police Accountability Board (JH Accountability Board), unique both in Maryland and throughout the country, empowers community members from JHU and the surrounding neighborhoods to help shape the development and operation of the future Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD).

The JH Accountability Board originated as one of several university recommendations in the Interim Study on Approaches to Improving Public Safety On and Around Johns Hopkins University Campuses and reflects both community input and research into best practices among police departments nationally.

The Community Safety and Strengthening Act, which passed the Maryland General Assembly during the 2019 legislative session, positions the Accountability Board as a crucial element in ensuring the success, transparency, and accountability of the JHPD. The JH Accountability Board will serve as a key adviser through every step of JHPD implementation. Under the law, JH Accountability Board members are responsible for sharing community concerns directly with department leadership, reviewing police department metrics, and assessing current and prospective department policies, procedures, and trainings in order to provide recommendations for improvement. [1]

The JH Accountability Board reflects the university‘s community of diverse people, ideas, and experiences. This includes diversity not only in affiliation with the University’s schools, campuses, and communities, but also in areas such as race, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, and ability. Members of the JH Accountability Board all have significant ties to the Baltimore City Community.

The JH Accountability Board is composed of:

• 5 community members unaffiliated with the University, including at least 1 community representative from each of the three areas in Baltimore where the JHPD may patrol; [1]
• 10 Johns Hopkins University students, faculty, and staff including at least one member of the JHU Black Faculty and Staff Association.

The state law authorizing the JHPD specifies that the mayor of Baltimore City and the city council president each appoint one community member to the JH Accountability Board; JHU leadership nominates the remaining 13 members, including three community members in consultation with the Baltimore City Council. All JHU nominees are subject to confirmation by the Maryland State Senate. [ii]

For its appointments, JHU has established an application process and a nominating committee composed of students, faculty, staff, and Baltimore City community members. To be considered for the 13 JHU-appointed seats, individuals were given the opportunity to submit applications online.

We also welcome nominations of others and will reach out to those nominated to provide application materials.

Additional information about both the JH Accountability Board and the application process can be found here. The dates for the 2025 application cycle are October 1st – October 24, 2024.

Names of the nominating committee members and more information about the JH Accountability Board can be found on the Public Safety website, along with a comment box to share your ideas and feedback.

Because the JH Accountability Board contains students, faculty, staff, and Baltimore City community members, the university established a nominating committee that has two representatives from each constituency. At least one student on the Student Advisory Committee (SAC) for Public Safety, and the faculty, staff, and community members have all been active and engaged around public safety issues. All have demonstrated their commitment to working with the university to improve the Baltimore City neighborhoods where they live and work and are well-respected advocates and leaders in their communities.

Names of the nominating committee members and more information about the JH Accountability Board can be found on the Public Safety website, along with a comment box to share your ideas and feedback.

The Community Safety and Strengthening Act places responsibility for 13 of the 15 JH Accountability Board appointments on Johns Hopkins, subject to confirmation by the Maryland State Senate; the remaining two seats are appointed by the mayor and city council president. We have taken an additional step of convening a separate nominating committee composed of students, faculty, staff, and community members to review applications and select the pool of individuals from which university leadership will make its appointment recommendations.

The JH Accountability Board is a crucial element in ensuring the success, transparency, and accountability of the JHPD. Under the law, board members are charged with sharing community concerns directly with department leadership, reviewing police department metrics, and assessing current and prospective department policies, procedures and trainings in order to provide recommendations for improvement.

By launching the effort to form the JH Accountability Board well before our first university police officers are recruited and trained, we are ensuring the board can provide guidance throughout each stage of this multiyear implementation process. Early board involvement will help embed our values and commitments around community-oriented public safety practices from the department’s inception.

The JH Accountability Board, which comprises Johns Hopkins students, neighbors, faculty, and staff, is a public channel for accountability and transparency. It is designed to ensure that community voices and perspectives inform the development and operation of the JHPD from its inception, including through:

• Regular public meetings, during which the board will review JHPD metrics around crime and assess and provide recommendations to university leadership around current and prospective department policies, procedures, and trainings.
• Public posting of all board meeting minutes online for public review and comment.
• Annual public meetings to obtain stakeholder feedback.

The Johns Hopkins Accountability Board (JH Accountability Board) consists of community, faculty, staff, and student representatives. Faculty and staff members, and community members appointed by the University and confirmed by the Maryland State Senate, serve for two-year terms. Student members serve one-year terms, which allows more students, including those in one- and two-year programs, from across the university to participate on the JH Accountability Board.  

Additionally, one member is appointed by the Mayor of Baltimore City and another by the President of the Baltimore City Council. Each fall, these members must be reconfirmed by their appointing office, with a maximum of two terms. The current limits are codified in the current bylaws.  

The Accountability Board will serve as a key advisor through every stage of JHPD implementation. They will have the opportunity to review and provide feedback on proposed department policies and metrics and share community feedback directly with Dr. Bard and his senior leadership team. 

The 2024 application cycle is from September 12th – Oct 16, 2023.

Yes. All draft policies will be shared with the JH Accountability Board prior to the posting for public review and comment. JH Accountability Board members will be invited to share feedback on draft policies in writing and during the Board’s public meetings.  

21^st Century Policing Solutions (21CP), a consulting firm comprised of seasoned outside experts dedicated to progressive police reform in America, prepared the following questions to help prompt consideration of the draft policies:  

1. Is this policy consistent with the values and needs of the community? 
2. Does this policy help JHPD safely carry out its stated mission?  
3. Is this policy understandable? Are there any points that need clarification? 
4. Is there anything that needs to be addressed in this policy that is not currently reflected in the draft?

Additionally, the Community Safety and Strengthening Act mandates that the Accountability Board is permitted and encouraged to review policies and make recommendations at any time.

The JH Accountability Board bylaws can be found here. 

Johns Hopkins sought the legislative authorization to build a police department in order to improve our ability to respond to our community’s growing public safety needs. We believe that every member of the Hopkins community, including our neighbors, deserves to feel safe. Just as we cannot accept the persistent levels of violent crime that leave a legacy of trauma and prevent communities from thriving, we cannot accept anything less than the highest standards of constitutional, equitable, and accountable law enforcement.

Through evidence-based, community-driven, and innovative approaches to public safety, the JHPD will be a small part of our broader 1,000-person public safety organization. The JHPD is limited by state law to no more than 100 personnel and will be directly accountable the Hopkins community. It is replacing the use of off-duty Baltimore police officers on our campuses and help to reduce the strain on the city’s resources while also advancing and modeling equitable and reform-oriented public safety strategies.

The JHPD, as authorized by the Community Safety and Strengthening Act, has begun to hire staff who are now making the idea of JHPD a reality across our campuses. Dr. Branville Bard has been appointed the inaugural JHPD Police Chief and he has hired two new leaders, Monique “Mo” Brown as Deputy Chief of Operations, and Robert “Teddy” Reed as Captain. The Department also announced over the summer of 2024 a full suite of policies and procedures that would guide the JHPD in its daily operations. The JHPD’s policies were developed in collaboration with independent experts from the National Policing Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing excellence in policing, and 21CP Solutions, an expert consulting team made up of former law enforcement personnel, academics, civil rights lawyers, and community leaders dedicated to advancing safe, fair, equitable, and inclusive public safety solutions. 

The Department is in the process of hiring front line officers and supervisors and expects to bring on many officers throughout 2025. Once officers are selected, they will enroll in officer training during the coming months and begin patrolling in a limited capacity after completion of training.

Yes. Johns Hopkins committed to a vigorous research program that included a review of available academic literature about public safety and university policing, peer benchmarking, and identification of best practices. We reviewed the scholarship on a wide range of relevant topics closely, from the root causes of violent crime and the impact of policing approaches on minority communities to research about the ways that police departments, if realized ethically and responsibly, can meaningfully serve as a public good.

To better understand prevailing approaches to public safety in academic settings, we surveyed the security models at over 50 peer universities, with a particular focus on urban peers. This survey included all 21 of Johns Hopkins’ peers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas, both public and private. We also examined the practices of select municipal and county police departments—both in Maryland and nationally—that have strong reputations for fair and impartial policing and/or recent, innovative approaches to police reform.

Our examination of peers and the relevant academic literature yielded many valuable insights into how public safety organizations are structured, what values should guide our public safety approaches, and which practices work best at reducing violent crime and advancing procedural justice. These concepts of what works in best practices form the basis of the new JHPD.

Yes, we explored arming JHPD officers with less lethal weapons as an alternative to firearms and include less lethal weapons in the training and equipment for the JHPD. Given the severity and prevalence of gun violence in our community and our current longstanding reliance on armed off-duty BPD officers and sheriff’s deputies, we determined that there was a need for a small armed university police department that is able to respond and intervene when there is an incident of violent crime and it is immediately necessary to protect a person in our community from an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury. As a result, we made the decision to shift away from armed off-duty BPD officers where possible and toward specially-trained university police officers who are directly accountable to us. These JHPD officers are provided with firearms and less lethal weapons and complete extensive and frequent training in both.

JHPD officers also receive Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) use of force and de-escalation training. We know that research suggests substituting guns for less lethal weapons can lead to less proactive de-escalation tactics in municipal police departments, and we focus significant resources and attention on training our university officers to safely resolve critical incidents, reducing the need for force, and promoting the sanctity of all human life.

Johns Hopkins currently has approximately 1000 unarmed public safety professionals who work to keep our campuses, health care facilities, and surrounding neighborhoods safe, as well as armed, off-duty Baltimore City police officers and sheriff’s deputies, and we have conducted extensive studies and field visits of peer universities locally and across the country to explore best practices and alternatives to campus policing. In addition, in 2018, at the request of the Maryland General Assembly, Johns Hopkins led a multi-pronged “Interim Study” that included community engagement and further research regarding approaches to improving public safety on and around JHU campuses. Throughout these efforts, we considered several options, including maintaining our existing unarmed public safety operation as-is and/or seeking to expand the role and presence of BPD.

We ultimately found that if we continued with our previous approach, we would continue to be hindered in deterring, addressing, and intervening in the level of violent crime that is affecting staff, faculty, students, and neighbors. We also found that a highly trained university-based police department is considered a best practice for public safety at colleges and universities, rather than relying on city police officers, and is an important support for public safety city-wide, by reducing the burden on a local municipal police department.

For more information, please see the 160-page Interim Study Report, which was published in December 2018 and presented to the Maryland General Assembly. 

In 2022, Venable, a world-renowned law firm, compared the legislative requirements that the JHPD is subject to (the authorizing statute, the Community Safety and Strengthening Act, as well as recent Maryland police reform legislation governing all state police departments) with state laws nationwide and legislation/policies of other university police departments. The in-depth review included an analysis of state legislation governing law enforcement officers in all fifty states and thirty-one campus law enforcement agencies, as well as an evaluation of the policies of those thirty-one campus police departments.

Upon conclusion of their review, Venable wrote: “it is clear that the Johns Hopkins Police Department (“JHPD”) stands out as a new model for publicly accountable, transparent, and community-oriented police departments in the country…Johns Hopkins has taken initiative and utilized the best practices gleaned from peer institutions’ legislation and policies. That framework positions the JHPD as the most progressive campus police department, and among the most progressive police departments in the country.”

Consistent with police departments at universities in Baltimore City and across Maryland,  Johns Hopkins (JH) was required by the Community Safety and Strengthening Act (CSSA) to enter into a  Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the  Baltimore Police Department (the BPD) regarding key operational details of the JHPD, including jurisdictional boundaries, the use of body worn cameras, arrests, warrants, investigations, and hiring. 

Learn more about the MOU process, how we engaged with the community, and supporting documentation.

Both the Community Safety and Strengthening Act and the MOU provide the Mayor with limited authority to temporarily expand JHPD jurisdictional boundaries during emergencies. This Mayoral expansion of JHPD boundaries is common among university police departments. In Baltimore, it would be permitted only if (1) there is a sudden and unforeseen emergency of such public gravity and urgency that it requires an immediate response to protect the public welfare, and the Mayor issues an order declaring an emergency that specifies the manner in which the police officer’s powers will be exercised or (2) if ordered to exercise the powers by the governor under a declared state of emergency.  

Yes. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is one part of the framework and policies that govern the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD), including the Community Safety and Strengthening Act (CSSA) and other state laws that govern state-authorized police departments. The JHPD also has a full policy manual that provides direction to the officers and holds all JHPD employees accountable to the MOU and the policies of the agency.
 
 

Since arriving at Johns Hopkins in August 2021, Dr. Branville Bard, Vice President for Public Safety, has made community engagement one of his top priorities. During his first month at Hopkins, he launched a communitywide listening tour and committed to meeting with Hopkins’ neighbors, students, staff, and faculty, as well as public safety-oriented groups. In all, over the course of his first year at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Bard participated in over 150 small group and individual meetings with members of the Johns Hopkins community.

Since that time, Dr. Bard continues to meet and engage with members of the community to share updates on the JHPD. He often participates in neighborhood and campus events, symposiums, and ceremonies.

If you have questions or would like to meet with Dr. Bard, please contact Johns Hopkins Public Safety at publicsafetyfeedback@jhu.edu.

Johns Hopkins is committed to a holistic approach to public safety that embraces and invests in root cause prevention, innovative responses to behavioral health crises, community partnerships, highly professional traditional campus security, and a small, progressive, publicly accountable police department. This approach aims to leverage our resources and expertise to support community-driven, innovative, public health strategies aimed at reducing and preventing violent crime, including:

• Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST). JHU developed and launched the BHCST in the fall of 2021. This highly innovative co-responder program pairs licensed behavioral health clinicians with trained unarmed public safety personnel to provide immediate expert assistance to Johns Hopkins students, faculty, staff, and neighbors experiencing a behavioral health crisis.
• JHU Innovation Fund for Community Safety (Innovation Fund). In 2020, JHU created the Innovation Fund, a four-year, $6 million investment in community-led programs to reduce violent crime in Baltimore by addressing its root causes. We are funding nine community partners to support their development and implementation of solutions to public safety in our city.
• Safe Streets Baltimore. Through the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, JHU is partnering with Safe Streets Baltimore, an evidence-based, public health program to reduce gun violence among youth ages 14 to 24.
• Roca Baltimore. JHU provided $2 million to help bring Roca, a nationally-recognized youth anti-violence and intervention program, to Baltimore.
• Focused Deterrence. JHU has provided early financial support for focused deterrence as a part of Baltimore City’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, an evidence-based model for crime reduction.
• Greater Baltimore Region Integrated Crisis System (GBRICS). Johns Hopkins is a founding member and lead sponsor of the Greater Baltimore Region Integrated Crisis System (GBRICS), a $45 million, multi-hospital, regional collaboration to expand community-based behavioral health crisis services in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Howard, and Carroll Counties.
• Break the Cycle Hospital Violence Intervention Program. Johns Hopkins administers the Break the Cycle Hospital Violence Intervention Program using public health strategies, such as trauma-informed training and case management, to quickly connect survivors of violence with the needed support to reduce the risk of future violent injury or death. A centerpiece of the program is the utilization of culturally competent responders and staff who may have experienced violence themselves and live in the community in which they work.

In addition, for more than a decade, Johns Hopkins has developed partnerships and initiatives that collectively work to bolster education, health care, and economic opportunity in Baltimore City, each of which helps to address the root causes of violent crime, including:

• Support for Baltimore City Public Schools. Johns Hopkins has invested over $26 million in resources and programming for Baltimore’s K-12 schools, including partnerships for STEM and arts education, capital construction, an innovative program that gives eye exams and glasses to students, and much more. For example:
  • Henderson Hopkins K-8 School. Since 2009, Johns Hopkins has invested approximately $20M to build and operate the first new K-8 public school constructed in East Baltimore in more than 20 years. That school, Elmer A. Henderson: A Johns Hopkins Partnership School, offers a STEAM-focused education for K-8 students, emphasizing small class sizes in one of the premier education facilities in all of Baltimore.
  • Vision for Baltimore. John Hopkins is a founder and lead partner of Vision for Baltimore, providing Baltimore City public school students with over 75,000 screenings, 10,000 eye exams, and 10,000 pairs of eyeglasses.
  • P-TECH Dunbar. Johns Hopkins is a leading funder and partner at Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) at Dunbar High School, from which students graduate after six years with a high school diploma and associate’s degree in the health sciences.
  • Barclay-Hopkins STEM Partnership. JHU’s Whiting School of Engineering provides both in-school and out-of-school STEM programming to students at Barclay Elementary Middle School, with a particular focus on engineering and computer science and a state-of-the-art STEM learning lab.
  • Margaret Brent Community Partnerships. A partnership between the Johns Hopkins School of Education and Margaret Brent Elementary School provides innovative, arts-integrated teaching and learning that supports creative problem-solving, and active learning.
  • Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School. A JHU grant of $100K provided funding and support for updated technology for classroom instruction and student testing at Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School, which serves 400 students just east of JHH on the boundary between CARE and McElderry Park neighborhoods.

• Summer Jobs. JHU has been the largest provider of summer jobs to Baltimore City youth since 1994, working in partnership with YouthWorks to connect thousands of young people between the ages of 14 and 21 to summer jobs throughout Baltimore. Over 4K Baltimore City youth have participated in the JH Summer Jobs program, which has grown from employing 216 students in 2014 to 479 in 2019 and successfully pivoted to virtual summer jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• East Baltimore Food Distribution. Provided more than 6 million meals to East Baltimore families experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic through partnerships with faith-based and community organizations like Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD) and Turnaround Tuesday.
• HopkinsLocal. Johns Hopkins University and Medicine launched HopkinsLocal in 2015. We have since hired more than 3,000 Baltimoreans in targeted neighborhoods and 1,533 returning citizens. We have also spent more than $888 million at local businesses and committed more than $270 million ($144.6 million last year alone) to minority-owned, women-owned, or disadvantaged businesses based in Baltimore City for design and construction projects.

JHPD officers are trained and certified to carry firearms in the course of their duties, just like other university police departments in Baltimore City and the state of Maryland. Until JHPD was established, Johns Hopkins hired armed, off-duty Baltimore City Police Officers and deputy sheriffs to provide this safety service.

The JHPD is prohibited from acquiring military-grade vehicles or military-grade hardware that is not otherwise available to the public for commercial sale in the State of Maryland.

Importantly, the JHPD policy manual includes a policy on use of force, which was developed in consultation with the JH Accountability Board and posted publicly on the Department’s website. That policy 1) emphasizes the sanctity of all human life, 2) authorizes the use of only that level of force that is objectively reasonable to bring the incident under control, and 3) expressly defines the limited circumstances under which lethal force would be authorized. JHPD officers will be trained in de-escalation and crisis mitigation techniques to reduce the need for use of force, and also have access to several less-than-lethal weapons to increase the options available to officers when responding to situations that may require the use of force.

JHPD policies emphasize de-escalation and valuing the sanctity of human life above all else. De-escalation is a core part of the JHPD philosophy. JHPD members are trained in the Integration of Communication, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) De-Escalation Program. ICAT is the only known police de-escalation training to have shown significant changes in police behavior in an independent research evaluation of the training in Louisville Metro PD. “ICAT is a training program that provides first responding police officers with the tools, skills, and options they need to defuse a range of critical incidents successfully and safely. Developed by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) with input from hundreds of police professionals from across the United States, ICAT takes the essential building blocks of critical thinking, crisis intervention, communications, and tactics, and puts them together in an integrated approach to training.”

If you wish to file a complaint against an officer with the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD), there are several options that are available to ensure your complaint is handled in a fair, impartial and transparent manner. One option is to file your complaint directly with the Public Safety Accountability Unit (PSAU), which is independent of the JHPD and reports directly to the University and Health System’s Chief Audit Officer.

To submit a complaint directly to the PSAU, you can email your complaint to psau@jh.edu, send it in via US Postal Service to PSAU, 1101 E. 33^rd Street, Suite C040, Baltimore, MD 21218-2696 or via phone at 443-927-3177.  You may also file your complaint with the Police Accountability Board (PAB) or the Civilian Review Board (CRB) directly from their websites. Additionally, any complaint that the public files directly with the JHPD involving one of their officers, must be sent to, and investigated by the PSAU.

The Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD) is only legally enabled to work within the university’s Homewood, East Baltimore, and Peabody “campus area” as defined in both the Community Safety and Strengthening Act (CSSA) and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). “Campus area” is defined in state law as property that is:  

1. owned, leased, operated by, or under the control of the University;  
2. located within specific boundaries (listed in the Act) on the Homewood, East Baltimore, and Peabody campuses; and  
3. used for educational or institutional purposes. 

The JHPD campus area does not include non-Hopkins property except public sidewalks, public streets, or other public thoroughfares, and/or parking facilities that are immediately adjacent to the campus. Preliminary maps of the JHPD jurisdictional boundaries can be viewed here.

There are no plans to expand the JHPD beyond the campus area at this time. Future expansion of those jurisdictional boundaries into neighboring communities is permitted by state law but would be subject to an additional public comment and approval process, including an additional MOU with the Baltimore Police Department (the BPD) and agreement from a majority of the community as certified by the Baltimore City Council.   

JHPD is responsible for patrolling Johns Hopkins’ buildings and property within the campus area and serves as the first responder for all calls within the campus area that require a police response. Following the JHPD’s initial response to calls, Johns Hopkins police officers will continue to serve as the lead for investigations and arrests for burglary, car theft, and other less serious crimes. The BPD will be the lead for investigations and arrests for more serious offenses (such as homicide, human trafficking, rape, kidnapping, and car accidents resulting in death or serious bodily harm); this includes any crime that requires investigation by BPD’s Crime Lab, Homicide Division, or involves a sex offense.

JHPD is responsible for patrolling Johns Hopkins’ buildings and property within the campus area and will serve as the first responder for all calls within the campus area that require a police response. We recognize, however, that a police response is not appropriate for every public safety call. As a part of a progressive approach to public safety, all calls will be assessed to determine the nature of the situation and potential risk and the appropriate response including JHU Public Safety,  JHPD, the BHCST, or BPD (among others). In keeping with our commitment to adhere to the ACLU of Massachusetts’ 2021 “Racially Just Policing: A Model Policy for Colleges and Universities,” the JHPD has developed policies and procedures to ensure that police officers are only dispatched when necessary. Our unarmed public safety officers, the Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST) or other non-policing alternatives will continue to be used when possible.

Using a 21^st Century approach to public safety, all calls will be assessed to determine the nature of the situation and potential risk before assigning the appropriate response in the spectrum of resources at the University. In keeping with our commitment to adhere to the ACLU of Massachusetts’ 2021 “Racially Just Policing: A Model Policy for Colleges and Universities,” the JHPD will only be dispatched when necessary. Our unarmed public safety officers, the Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST), or other non-policing alternatives will continue to be used when possible.

If there is an incident that requires a police response within the JHPD’s campus area, then the JHPD will be dispatched. Following the JHPD’s initial response, Johns Hopkins police officers will continue to serve as the lead for investigations and arrests for burglary, car theft, and other less serious crimes. The BPD will be the lead for investigations and arrests for more serious offenses (such as homicide, human trafficking, rape, kidnapping, and car accidents resulting in death or serious bodily harm). If an incident requiring a police response occurs outside of the campus area, BPD will be dispatched. 

Yes, the JHPD is authorized to conduct traffic enforcement within the Homewood, Peabody, and East Baltimore campus area. Traffic enforcement outside of the campus area will continue to be conducted by BPD.

Yes, the JHPD is authorized to obtain and execute warrants within the campus area. Warrants for service outside of the campus area must be submitted to BPD for service, and those arrests must be made by BPD.

Under state law, the JHPD is not permitted to exercise police powers outside of its campus area, unless:

1. engaged in fresh pursuit of a suspected offender;
2. necessary to facilitate the orderly flow of traffic to and from the university’s campus area;
3. specially requested or authorized by the Mayor of Baltimore City in specific emergencies; or
4. ordered by the Governor under a declared state of emergency.

JHPD policies will support the jurisdictional mandates in the Community Safety and Strengthening Act and the MOU, and prescribe discipline for violations of the policy.

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (JHBMC), the Eastern building, and the Carey Business School, as well as other Johns Hopkins facilities across the city, are outside of the JHPD’s “campus area” jurisdictional boundaries as defined in the law that authorizes the JHPD (the Community Safety and Strengthening Act). 

In order to expand the JHPD beyond the campus area to those properties, or any other neighborhoods not expressly outlined in the law, Johns Hopkins would be required to obtain approval from BPD and majority community support from the relevant neighborhood as certified by the Baltimore City Council.

However, while the JHPD jurisdictional boundaries do not include JHBMC, the Eastern building, or other facilities, we will continue to provide public safety services to all Johns Hopkins facilities via our unarmed public safety officers, as well as off-duty Baltimore city police officers and deputy sheriffs, and we will continue to call upon and coordinate with BPD for safety services there as needed.

There are no immediate plans to expand the JHPD. However, under the law authorizing the creation of the JHPD, future jurisdictional boundaries could potentially be expanded if: 

1. Johns Hopkins obtains new property within the limited “campus area” street boundaries listed in the CSSA; or
2. There is majority community support in a particular neighborhood and BPD approval for the JHPD boundaries to include that neighborhood. In this instance, Johns Hopkins would need to post an additional draft MOU with the proposed new jurisdictional boundaries for community and city council feedback, host two public town halls to present the draft MOU, and post the final MOU online for public review. Further, the City Council must also pass a resolution confirming that there is majority community support for those expanded boundaries.

Prior to any future expansion of the JHPD, we would share with the JH Accountability Board and the broader community a proposal for determining “majority community support.”

Under the Community Safety and Strengthening Act, and as restated in the MOU, the JHPD has limited authority to exercise police powers outside of the campus area when an officer is in fresh pursuit of a suspected offender. JHPD officers are subject to Maryland law, which defines fresh pursuit as a “pursuit that is continuous and without unreasonable delay.” Officers can engage in fresh pursuit of a person who has “committed or is reasonably believed by the law enforcement officer to have committed a felony” or “has committed a misdemeanor in the presence of the law enforcement officer” in the JHPD “campus area.” [1] For example, if a person intentionally injures another person in front of an officer, the officer may pursue the assailant across jurisdictional boundaries in order to arrest the suspect and keep the community safe. 

[1] MD Code, Criminal Procedure, § 2-301, MD Crim Proc §2-301

The Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST) pairs behavioral health clinicians with specially trained public safety personnel to provide immediate in-person assistance to individuals experiencing a personal crisis. The program launched on the Homewood campus in 2021 will expand its coverage to the Peabody/Mount Vernon area this fall. An expansion to East Baltimore is anticipated over the next year.

When the JHPD is sufficiently staffed, the BHCST will continue to operate as a partnership between our specially-trained unarmed public safety officers and our behavioral health clinicians. All calls will continue to be assessed to determine the nature of the situation and potential risk and the appropriate response. We recognize that a police response is not appropriate for every public safety call, and the JHPD will serve as the first responder only for calls within the campus area that require a police response. 

Yes. Even once the JHPD has been fully staffed, our unarmed public safety professionals will continue to play a key role in our broader public safety strategy. This is a requirement in state law and aligned with our vision for public safety at Johns Hopkins.

Importantly, the patrol boundaries of our unarmed public safety professionals are now and will continue to be broader than the JHPD. Services provided by our public safety organization include:

• 24/7 on-campus presence; 
• Unarmed public safety officers with patrol boundaries that include the Bayview Medical Center, Carey Business School, East Baltimore, Eastern Campus, Homewood, Peabody, Washington, DC
• Complementary escort service with officers who will meet you and walk you to your on-campus destination; 
• State-of-the-art Communications Center, which monitors a Closed Circuit Television Network, card access, duress alarms, and intrusion alarms at the East Baltimore campus, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and Howard County General Hospital; and 
• The Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST), a highly innovative co-responder program that pairs licensed behavioral health clinicians with trained unarmed public safety personnel to provide immediate expert assistance to Johns Hopkins students, faculty, staff, and neighbors experiencing a behavioral health crisis. 

Please visit this portion of our our website for more information about our existing public safety organization.

Johns Hopkins has long relied on the Baltimore Police Department (the BPD) for nearly all on-campus policing needs, including emergency calls, incident and event management, and investigations, and through the daily engagement of armed, off-duty BPD Officers as a part of every university public safety shift. As we hire JHPD staff, our team will help reduce the strain on the BPD and city resources by relying instead on university-employed and trained officers for most policing needs within JH campuses.

In addition, Johns Hopkins and the BPD have included language in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to further support the BPD’s staffing levels. Specifically:

• Johns Hopkins would be prohibited from directly soliciting BPD sworn officers for employment with the JHPD; and
• JHU and the JHPD would be limited to hiring no more than five (5) BPD sworn officers per year.

Johns Hopkins has long relied on the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) for nearly all of our on-campus policing needs, including emergency calls, incident and event management, and investigations, and through the daily engagement of armed, off-duty Baltimore City Police Officers as a part of every university public safety shift. At any given time in past years, Johns Hopkins has had up to 11 armed Baltimore police officers and deputy sheriffs working on our Baltimore campuses.

Once fully staffed, the JHPD will allow Johns Hopkins to replace the use of off-duty Baltimore police officers and deputy sheriffs on our Homewood, Peabody, and East Baltimore campuses. This will help to reduce the strain on the city’s resources while also advancing and modeling equitable and reform-oriented public safety strategies.

No, the JHPD will not replace our existing public safety officers. Even when fully implemented, the JHPD will be narrow in scope – no more than 100 personnel – and only one element of our overall public safety approach, which includes root cause prevention, innovative responses to behavioral health crises, investments in community safety partnerships, and highly professional traditional campus security. Moving forward, we will continue to rely on our very large contingent of unarmed public safety officers, now numbering almost1000 personnel. This is a requirement in state law and aligned with our vision for public safety at Johns Hopkins.

Johns Hopkins recognizes the importance of having officers who are a part of the community in Baltimore City, and we are establishing several initiatives to promote local and minority hiring and residency.

Although not all JHPD officers are required to be city residents, the Community Safety and Strengthening Act requires that within five years, at least 25% of the JHPD workforce must be Baltimore City residents and that the JHPD must host or participate in at least four job fairs in and across Baltimore City each year to recruit and interview applicants for positions in the JHPD. To ensure accountability in this regard, Johns Hopkins must also track and report publicly our recruitment and workforce data.

Yes. The ability to design a police department from the ground up to address the issues confronting a university community is a strong corollary to our ongoing efforts to prevent and address sexual assault and misconduct

Today, members of the Johns Hopkins Public Safety team are required to understand the Sexual Misconduct Policy and Procedures; to complete training in sexual assault issues and incidents; and to fully inform any potential victims about their options, including those available within the University’s process. The University maintains a daily crime log, issues public safety notices, and delivers annual Clery Act and Office of Institutional Equity reports that provide data to the public on reported sexual misconduct.

All JHPD officers will be trained extensively in working with and helping to support individuals reporting sexual misconduct. As with all serious crimes, if the victim chooses to report a sexual assault for criminal investigation, JHPD officers will be able to assist in an investigation as an alternative to going directly to the BPD. The JHPD will also work closely with the JHU Office of Institutional Equity to ensure compliance with the JHU Sexual Misconduct Policy and Procedures.

We are dedicated to creating a police department that is public-facing, public-serving, and publicly accountable. Importantly, in addition to our commitment to progressive policing policies, including those recommended in the model policy proposed by the ACLU of Massachusetts in the 2021 “Racially Just Policing: A Model Policy for Colleges and Universities” and the 2015 “Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the JHPD will be subject to multiple layers of state-mandated accountability mechanisms, including:

1. Johns Hopkins University Police Accountability Board (JHAB)The 15-member Johns Hopkins Police Accountability Board is composed of students, faculty, staff, and community members and enables community members to share feedback regarding the university police department directly with department leadership. The board is also responsible for reviewing department metrics, providing feedback on existing department policies and practices, and offering recommendations for improving those policies and practices.
2. State-Mandated Complaint Investigation and Disciplinary Process. The JHPD falls within the jurisdiction of the Baltimore City Accountability Board and must comply with state requirements around the investigation of complaints and discipline of officers.
3. Body-Worn Cameras. JHPD officers must wear and use body-worn cameras.
4. Public Disclosure. The JHPD is required to provide public access to certain law enforcement records, including department records related to an arrest for a criminal offense.
5. Independent Evaluation and Review. There must be an independent evaluation and review of the JHPD within 10 years, after which time the Maryland General Assembly must act to extend or reauthorize the JHPD, or else it will terminate. The results of the evaluation and review will be publicly available. 
6. Annual Reporting. As a state-authorized police department, the JHPD is required to comply with all applicable state reporting requirements, including reporting on use of force incidents, officer-involved deaths, and traffic stops. The JHPD also is subject to reporting requirements beyond those currently required of other state-authorized law enforcement agencies regarding recruitment efforts, department size, department funding, arrests, complaints, use of surveillance technologies, officer-involved shootings, officer discipline, and demographic data on the JHPD security workforce. All data must be publicly reported and disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, age, and, when applicable, officer rank.
7. Civilian Review Board. The JHPD is subject to the jurisdiction of the Civilian Review Board of Baltimore City (CRB). The CRB—composed of residents from across the city—reviews city police agencies’ handling of serious police misconduct complaints and makes recommendations for improvement. Only two other city universities are currently under the CRB’s purview.
8. Exemption from State Qualified Immunity. JHPD officers will not be protected by qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is a long-standing legal doctrine that effectively shields law enforcement officials from being sued for unconstitutional misconduct. The JHPD is among the first sworn police departments in the country to ban qualified immunity protections.

The Baltimore City Police Accountability Board (PAB) and the Johns Hopkins Police Accountability Board (JH Accountability Board) are two separate, though complementary, entities.

Under the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021, every county in Maryland, as well as the City of Baltimore, is required to establish a Police Accountability Board that would:

• hold quarterly meetings with heads of law enforcement agencies, and otherwise work with law enforcement agencies and the City government to improve matters of policing;
• appoint civilian members to charging committees and trial boards;
• receive complaints of police misconduct filed by members of the public;
• on a quarterly basis, review outcomes of disciplinary matters considered by charging committees; and
• by December 31 of each year, submit a report to the governing body of the City that identifies any trends in the disciplinary process of City police officers, and makes recommendations on policy changes to improve police accountability in the City.

The BCP Police Accountability Board is managed by the Baltimore City Office of Equity and Civil Rights and is made up of 17 members who are appointed by the Mayor and City Council. This body receives all complaints of police misconduct involving the public and refers them to the appropriate law enforcement agency for investigation. The BCP Accountability Board also meets quarterly to review and make recommendations on policies, advises the Mayor and City Council on policing matters, and appoints civilian members to the Administrative Charging Committee, which is a body of five civilian members who review the investigations for complaints filed with the Police Accountability Board and decide on disciplinary outcomes.

The Johns Hopkins University Police Accountability Board (JHAB) originated as one of several university recommendations in the Interim Study on Approaches to Improving Public Safety On and Around Johns Hopkins University Campuses and reflects both community input and research into best practices among police departments nationally. The Community Safety and Strengthening Act, which passed the Maryland General Assembly during the 2019 legislative session, positions the JHAB as a key adviser to university leadership through every step of JHPD implementation. Under the law, JHAB members are responsible for sharing community concerns directly with department leadership, reviewing police department metrics, and assessing current and prospective department policies, procedures, and trainings in order to provide recommendations for improvement.

The JHAB is a 15-member Board comprised of students, faculty, staff, and community members; one member is appointed by the Mayor of Baltimore City, one is appointed by the President of the Baltimore City Council, and the other 13 members are appointed by JHU and confirmed by the Maryland State Senate.

Racially biased policing of any kind at Johns Hopkins or elsewhere is wholly unacceptable. It undermines community safety and well-being and is antithetical to constitutional community policing. We unequivocally believe that safety and security go hand in hand with respect for civil rights and civil liberties, and we will hold our public safety team accountable to that standard. Racially biased policing is a serious concern across the nation, and we view the creation of a new police department as an opportunity to create a best-in-class model that serves as an example of how to prevent and avoid bad police practices.

The central test of a community-oriented, harm-reducing public safety operation is how its officers treat those they encounter. Johns Hopkins requires training in lawful searches, recognizing and mitigating the impact of implicit bias, and preventing racially biased policing, which can impact decisions about whom to stop and enforcement actions during the stop.

Our commitments also include recruiting officers with a track record of positively serving diverse communities, establishing clear rules and training for officer-civilian interactions that emphasize respect for all people, requiring officers to identify themselves and explain the JHPD complaint process, and using tracking and data analysis of stops to identify and address any inappropriate treatment of minorities. In addition, the Community Safety and Strengthening Act requires that JHPD officers use body-worn cameras to promote officer accountability and transparency.

These priorities were also reflected in our search for public safety leaders at Johns Hopkins. All of our leadership are outspoken advocates of police reform and have a proven track record of creating change within public safety operations. Specifically, VP Dr. Branville Bard’s Doctor of Public Administration dissertation focused on strategies to eliminate racial profiling, and as chief of police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he launched a public-facing dashboard to proactively monitor data on police-citizen interactions for indications of possible racial profiling or biased policing. Dr. Bard plans to launch a similar database for public safety operations at Johns Hopkins. 

Training for the JHPD meets the rigorous standards outlined in the legislation and be consistent with the core values of our institution, including free expression, diversity, equity, inclusion, accountability, and transparency. State law requires the JHPD to provide training that:

• advances impartial and nondiscriminatory policing, including training on conducting lawful searches, recognizing the existence of everyone’s implicit biases, and learning strategies to mitigate the impact of implicit bias against racial, religious, sexual, and other minorities in their decision-making;
• ensures lawful use of force and safe treatment of individuals in custody;
• supports the lawful exercise of rights of free expression, particularly in the context of a university community;
• promotes appropriate interactions with youth and individuals who are in crisis, are neurodivergent, or have a behavioral health condition or disabilities; and
• builds trust between victims of sexual assault and the JHPD.

In addition to those training requirements mandated in the law, Johns Hopkins requires all newly hired officers to complete training on the following topics:

• cultural and LGBTQ+ awareness and competence;
• community policing, including understanding community expectations and reservations around policing in the city;
• procedural justice in police-citizen interactions;
• active bystandership in policing;
• de-escalation techniques;
• crisis intervention, including detecting behavior that calls for a medical and/or mental health intervention rather than a traditional law enforcement intervention;
• collaborating with nonpolice university resources, including mental health practitioners;
• trauma-informed practices for police-citizen contacts, including contacts with youth and victims of sexual assault;
• understanding youth brain development, youth trauma, and the impacts of police interactions on youth;
• alternatives to arrest, particularly for youth;
• free expression in university environments; and
• Clery Act and Title IX.

We require our officers to undergo supervised field training that includes an introduction to community leaders, particularly of underserved or traditionally marginalized communities in or near their service area. And we ensure that training occurs regularly to reinforce important lessons and teach new ones.

Please submit any additional questions on our feedback page. We will update the FAQs on an ongoing basis.

The JHU BHCST is a mobile crisis co-responder program that pairs licensed mental health clinicians with specially trained public safety personnel. The BHCST provides 24/7 assistance to those who need it and, just as importantly, links individuals in crisis to ongoing university support services in the days and weeks that follow. For community members in crisis who are not directly affiliated with JHU, BHCST clinicians offer connections to Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (BCRI), a well-established and highly respected community organization with significant experience helping individuals in crisis in Baltimore City.

While calls can come in from any number of sources, Johns Hopkins Public Safety officers are often the first and sole in-person responders to behavioral health emergencies within our university community.  After Public Safety receives a call through dispatch, they determine if the call for assistance has a behavioral health component. In the case of a student, they contact the appropriate campus mental health center for consultation (e.g. undergraduates are referred to the Counseling Center). JHU students comprise nearly three quarters of the behavioral health calls received through dispatch. Immediate and follow-on care is then transitioned to one of these mental health centers if the incident occurs between 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday.

For behavioral crisis calls that occur on weekends or after business hours, Johns Hopkins works with ProtoCall, a 24-hour crisis hotline that offers immediate teletherapy and reports back to JHU student mental health services on the nature and status of each call. Clinicians typically do not respond on-site, providing clinical support remotely via phone or iPad. This process is facilitated by the Public Safety officer who has responded to the call and is present with the distressed individual.

For all other behavioral health calls, Public Safety often responds alongside the Baltimore City Police Department, as these calls are usually routed through 911 dispatch.

The JHU BHCST includes licensed mental health clinicians with expertise in crisis care who respond to behavioral health-related calls alongside Crisis Intervention Team-trained Public Safety personnel. In addition to assessment and stabilization, BHCST clinicians provide follow-up contact and case management to connect individuals with a range of mental health and other support resources. In cases where a person in crisis requires a higher level of care, BHCST clinicians can facilitate hospitalization or connections with intensive outpatient services.

For community members in crisis who are not directly affiliated with JHU, BHCST clinicians offer connections to Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (BCRI), a well-established and highly respected community organization with significant experience helping individuals in crisis in Baltimore City.

The BHCST is dispatched as the initial response resource if a call for service to JHU Public Safety is believed to have a behavioral health component, such as a request to check on someone’s well-being or a report of someone with suicidal ideation.

The BHCST can also be mobilized through the Access Line (410-516-WELL), which connects callers directly to the clinical team. If a mobile crisis co-response is necessary, the BHCST clinicians contact Public Safety, and the team responds to the location of the caller or person of concern.

Calls range from individuals experiencing general emotional distress, suicidal ideation, welfare checks, victims of assault or trauma, and any other concerns with a behavioral health component.

The BHCST averages at least 200 mobile crisis co-response calls per year and hundreds more calls to the Access Line. During these calls, the BHCST clinicians conduct risk assessments, provide compassionate listening, validation, and de-escalation, and help the person in distress connect to mental health and other helpful resources. The BHCST clinicians have also engaged with students and staff through telehealth evaluations when needed.

In addition to the initial crisis intervention, the BHCST clinicians have conducted thousands of follow-up contacts for support and case management. The BHCST clinicians also consult with faculty and staff who may be concerned about a student or learner to help develop plans for support and intervention.

This program is available for anyone experiencing a behavioral health crisis on and around our Baltimore campuses, where the vast majority of our undergraduate and graduate students reside. This includes Johns Hopkins students, faculty, staff, and our unaffiliated, Baltimore neighbors — in a moment of crisis, we do not limit assistance based on affiliation status.

The benefit of integrating this team within our existing health and well-being framework is that we can connect JHU students, faculty and staff who are interested in accessing longer term behavioral health services with additional resources and counseling beyond the initial mobile crisis response.

For community members in crisis who are not directly affiliated with JHU, a connection is offered to Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (BCRI), a well-established and highly respected community organization with significant experience helping individuals in crisis throughout our region.

The benefit of integrating this team within our existing health and well-being framework is that we can connect JHU students, faculty and staff interested in accessing longer term behavioral health services with additional resources and counseling beyond the initial mobile crisis response.

Mobile Crisis Response is available to JHU’s Baltimore campuses at Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody, Harbor East, and Mt. Washington.

JHU developed the Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST) in response to a growing need for more substantive crisis services, as supported by data and a desire from our community, for a more comprehensive and public health-based response to individuals who may be experiencing a behavioral or mental health crisis on or around our Baltimore campuses. The BHCST responds to calls within the Johns Hopkins University Public Safety service area without regard to university affiliation; Public Safety provides services and responds to calls within a specified community boundary, including areas heavily populated by undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, the team serves the JHU’s Baltimore campuses at Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody, Harbor East and Mt. Washington. This scope reflects and honors the university’s commitment to respond to the safety needs of our student population.

In the fall of 2021, Johns Hopkins University launched the Johns Hopkins University Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST) in pilot phase on and around the Homewood campus. In February 2022, the team started providing 24/7 mobile crisis co-response services to the Homewood campus and hired additional staff. The Access Line was launched in fall of 2022, along with the expansion of the service area to the Peabody campus and Mt. Vernon area. In August 2023, the service area expanded to East Baltimore in the final phase of the BHCST project.

JHU is one of the first campus-based mobile co-response teams, and the first in the U.S. to launch a 24/7/365 model staffed with licensed clinicians. We have provided consultation to many campuses in various stages of team development and would be happy to share what we have learned. Please send an email to Jennifer Howes (jhowes2@jhu.edu) for more information.

JHU is one of the first campus-based mobile co-response teams, and the first in the U.S. to launch a 24/7/365 model staffed with licensed clinicians. We have provided consultation to many campuses in various stages of team development and would be happy to share what we have learned. Please send an email to Jennifer Howes (jhowes2@jhu.edu) for more information.

JHU developed the BHCST in response to a growing need, as supported by data and a desire from our community, for a more comprehensive, public health and safety response to individuals who may be experiencing a behavioral or mental health crisis on or around our Baltimore campuses.

We undertook an in-depth analysis of contemporary best practices and assessed our more traditional, security-based responses and interventions. We considered carefully the recommendations outlined in the 2018 Task-Force-on-Student-Mental-Health-and-Well-being-Final-Report  and feedback we heard directly from our community. We were also guided, in developing this program, by Dr. Ronald Means, a locally and nationally recognized child/adolescent, adult and forensic psychiatrist and expert consultant in the field of behavioral health crisis services, and an Advisory Committee comprised of faculty, staff, students and neighborhood leaders. Through these multiple efforts, it became clear that many of the calls being addressed by Public Safety could be more effectively and appropriately handled by behavioral health clinicians.

Since the program launch in late October 2021 through December 31, 2023, the BHCST has provided 382 mobile crisis responses on and surrounding the Homewood, Mt. Vernon, and East Baltimore campuses. During these calls, the BHCST clinicians have conducted safety assessments, provided compassionate listening, validation, and de-escalation, and helped the person in distress plan next steps. The BHCST clinicians have also had the opportunity to engage with students and staff through televideo evaluations when needed.

The vast majority of the mobile crisis responses have been to students and learners, with 9 total responses provided to non-JHU affiliates. When the team responds to a non-JHU affiliate, clinicians offer a warm connection to city-based crisis response resources. In all but two cases, assistance from community partner Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. (BCRI) was declined.

Since the launch of the 24/7 Access Line in October 2022, clinicians have fielded 242 telephone triages and consultations.