In what may have the potential for creating an ER/Law & Order cross over show, SB 582 authorizes the appointment of “hospital police” by the governing board of a hospital.
Other than the potential television appeal of combining a gritty cop drama with a gritty medical drama (“Careful Johnny, he’s got a bed pan. CODE BROWN! CODE BROWN!”), I’m not sure what particular need this one serves unless it’s addressing a fear that the regular police won’t feel comfortable doing the things the hospitals need done to collect on their chargemaster prices.
But, I suppose if Ohio has phone cops, we can have hospital police.
I can think of situations–e.g., assistance to hospital staff in psychiatric wards–where a specially-trained police officer could be useful, and where it could be ill-considered to depend upon local police to assure training for police detailed to the facility. Not that those arrangements couldn’t be made–only that depending upon someone else for that kind of staffing could be unreliable.
Law and Order: Intensive Care Unit
Hospitals have a lot of trespassers. In some areas, the local police may take their time in dealing with trespassers who have been detained by security. Legally speaking, I’m not even sure if the current procedure is legal. For first time offenders, trespassing is a misdemeanor. Non-sworn hospital security officers are just civilians, and fall under IC 35-33-1-4 which states:
Any person may arrest any other person if:
(1) the other person committed a felony in his presence;
(2) a felony has been committed and he has probable cause to believe that the other person has committed that felony; or
(3) a misdemeanor involving a breach of peace is being committed in his presence and the arrest is necessary to prevent the continuance of the breach of peace.
(b) A person making an arrest under this section shall, as soon as practical, notify a law enforcement officer and deliver custody of the person arrested to a law enforcement officer.
(c) The law enforcement officer may process the arrested person as if the officer had arrested him. The officer who receives or processes a person arrested by another under this section is not liable for false arrest or false imprisonment.
The question is, does misdemeanor trespassing constitute a “breach of peace?” The phrase isn’t defined in the criminal section of the IC. Usually what happens is that security throws the cuffs on for trespassing, then calls an LEO who processes the arrest in some fashion. However, even LEOs can’t arrest on misdemeanor trespassing because it isn’t an exception to the law. So now we have a case where the LEO doesn’t witness the initial trespassing, and only sees the person on the property once they have already been detained by security.
Hospitals I have been to in Indy use security guards who are also special deputies. This bill appears to formalize the process.
Every University and every school system is now authorized to have its own police force, so why not hospitals?
Why not library police? Why not playground police?
I just don’t get the value of the specialization here. If you have special problems, make arrangements with city & county police departments.
Conditions in Indianapolis are not generally very representative of what is going on in the other 98% of Indiana counties.
I am not sure you got my point. I do not know whether Tippecanoe schools have their own police yet, but why should Purdue have its own police force?
I’m not going to go to the mat arguing for campus police; but I guess my response is that: 1) they are arms of the State; and 2) universities operate almost like a city.
Hospitals aren’t state entities, aren’t as self-sufficient, and are fairly narrow (as compared to a city or university) in terms of the services they provide.
Butler University Police have full police power on their campus and a fair bit of City of Indianapolis land.
Butler is not an “arm of the state.”
Sounds like the “Non-Profit” hospitals want to reduce or eliminate paying a Payment in Lu of Taxes (PILOT) to local governments for police & fire coverage.
Privatized police forces have been on the rise again since the late 70s (after suffering retrenchment in the late 30s). They are popular because they answer to the policies of their employer, not to the public, or even the government.