N-DEx Assists with Campus Crime Prevention

On February 7, 2017, officers with the University of Southern Mississippi Police Department responded to a report of a suspicious person who had chased a female student near a residence hall. Authorities made contact with the subject and discovered the man was a transient passing through the area. Because the university promotes an open campus, law enforcement officers make every attempt not to ban persons from the campus unless they have shown some behavior of concern to the campus community. However, a search of the subject’s information against the FBI’s National Data Exchange (N-DEx) System revealed multiple arrests and law enforcement contacts across multiple states for thefts and threatening behavior. Due to this pattern of behavior and the authorities’ concern for the safety of the students, faculty, and staff members, the subject was escorted off campus and was issued a trespassing warning. A captain with the police department stated, “We don’t generally get credit for the crimes we prevent, and it’s hard to quantify them, but this certainly seems to qualify.”

For more information about how your agency can use various searches of the N-DEx System to assist with subject searches, contact the N-DEx Program Office at ndex@leo.gov or call 304-625-0555.

Logo of the National Data Exchange (N-DEx) program.