CARSON CITY -- The Board of Regents today voted to create a Council of Professional Police Standards to review allegations of misconduct made against police officers at UCCSN institutions.

The council will serve as a police review board for those UCCSN institutions with individual police departments and will also make recommendations concerning the actions of the department or the individual who had been accused of misconduct. Currently, only the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Truckee Meadows Community College have active police departments.

In April 2002, the Board reviewed a comprehensive report from the ad hoc UCCSN Police Study Committee, which was formed as the result of a Board of Regents directive to commission a panel to study campus policing and security on UCCSN campuses. The committee met through 2001, and surveyed campus police and security firms at UNLV, UNR, CCSN and TMCC. The final report made recommendations—which were included as new policies within the Board of Regents Handbook –regarding campus policing issues, policy changes, and funding and practice issues. One of the new policies adopted by the Board at that time called for the creation of a police review board.

Each institution will organize a council that will be comprised of student council representatives, community members, and administrative and academic faculty members.

The Nevada Board of Regents is the elected, 13-member governing body for the University and Community College System of Nevada. Comprising two doctoral granting universities, a state college, four comprehensive community colleges and one environmental research institute, the UCCSN serves the educational and job training needs of the nation's fastest growing state. As Nevada's only system of higher education, the UCCSN provides educational opportunities to more than 93,000 students.

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