A bill allowing public access to information maintained by campus police affiliated with private and non-profit institutions of higher education in North Carolina has become law.

House Bill 142 was ratified on June 5 and signed into law this week by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory. The new law requires campus police departments at private universities to comply with more public records requests, making arrest records and other investigative records public information. It requires the same kind of access also mandated for municipal, county and state law enforcement.

Contents of arrest, incident, and investigative reports; the circumstances surrounding an arrest; the recordings or transcripts of emergency calls to campus agencies; communications between campus police employees pertaining to arrests and investigations; the identity of complaining witnesses; and the daily log of crimes reported to the agency are now required to be made available for public record.

The new law sets defined rules for private and non-profit institutions of higher education in North Carolina to follow in providing information for public records maintained by campus police.