Twenty-four high school students learned that when it comes to law enforcement, there’s no bigger jurisdiction than the coast.

On Friday, sophomores and juniors attending New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School met with Harbormaster Jill Simmons who shared lessons and anecdotes from her 40-plus years in maritime law enforcement.

The students are in the school’s Legal and Protective Services Program, which prepares them for a law enforcement career.

“We talked about how difficult it is to patrol the porous, maritime borders of the U.S.,” she said. “There’s hundreds of thousands of miles of coast.”

Simmons told students about the field’s challenges and changes she’s seen through the years and how different agencies collaborate when there’s an incident on the water.

“It’s not just the harbormasters who are out there. The Coast Guard, Environmental Police and State Police all have their own roles,” Simmons said. “We covered all the bases.”

Legal and Protective Services program teacher Barbara Lipsett arranged the field trip. Lipsett and Simmons served together as New Bedford police officers.

Simmons told the students about large cases she’s worked in New Bedford, including drug smuggling and human trafficking.

“There’s been boats that brought in hundreds of Chinese citizens who were shipped to New York, never to be heard from again,” she said.

In Mattapoisett she deals with different issues.

This summer, she received a call from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official. She was told a local man failed to notify the proper authorities when he returned from a sailing trip in Bermuda.

“Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to skip customs at Logan Airport?” she said. “In a boat, it’s so much simpler for a bad guy with ill intentions to smuggle something in.”

Students also visited Ned’s Point Lighthouse and ended with lunch in Shipyard Park.

According to the students, the trip couldn’t have been more informative.

“I heard quite a few kids say to [Lipsett], ‘Hey, you were right. All we had to do was wait and whatever question we had would be answered.’”