More than one in 10 college campus police in Georgia have been fired or forced to resign from a previous job, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found.

The number of college officers with these checkered pasts is double the percentage of officers working at local county or municipal agencies. Roughly 13 percent of the 1,413 officers working on 63 college campuses across Georgia have been fired or forced from a job.

The offenses that led to college officers getting let go from a previous job ranged from domestic violence to excessive force to lying to their superiors. Smaller colleges tended to have more tolerance for officers with problems in their histories, matching a trend of small police agencies across the state.

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A bronze statue of football coach Erk Russell outside of the Gene Bishop Field House at Allen E. Paulson stadium on Georgia Southern University’s Statesboro, Ga. campus. Georgia Southern is one of two state schools that have volunteered to join a new accreditation agency. (Sarah Peacock for the AJC)

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A migrant farmworker harvests Vidalia onions at a farm in Collins, in 2011. A coalition of farmworkers, including one based in Georgia, filed suit last month in federal court arguing that cuts to H-2A wages will trigger a cut in the pay and standard of living of U.S. agricultural workers. (Bita Honarvar/AJC)

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