In evaluating the current crime reports for on campus offenses, one can see that the number of reported incidents of larceny and underage drinking has increased. However, if you asked any student on campus if they think crime has gone up, most would say they haven’t noticed an increase in illegal behaviors.
With the enactment of stricter state mandates on drinking, Public Safety has been encouraged to be less forgiving when it comes to punishing underage drinking and other offenses, such as drug use.’ Now, it is normal protocol for Public Safety to turn those with drugs over to the Fairfield Police, rather than simply writing them up. As a result it appears that less students are being documented for drug use, while in reality those students are simply being arrested more often.
Other factors may be affecting the numbers as well. The prohibition of kegs on campus lowered the maximum amount of alcohol students can have in their possession, making it easier to punish students. Since the lock-up of Townhouse basements, it would only make sense that more parties would be raided by Public Safety as the noise complaints are more frequent.
However, it may be that since the basement lock-up, more students are traveling to the beach at night to avoid Public Safety’s reign over on-campus parties. This, in turn, creates more risks and proposes larger questions, such as preventing drinking and driving. It is also possible that safe transportation from students from the beach to campus at night could eventually exist. Questions like these, especially since the drunken driving accident at the beach when student Jack Cleverley ’10 was sent to the hospital, should be increasingly addressed by administration and students alike.
Although Public Safety may be becoming more diligent about punishing offenders on campus, no visible efforts have been made to improve the system in which students must go through after they are written up for an offense. Preventative programs should be made more extensive every year, despite what the numbers tell us.
Looming over this whole debate is the possibility of a big change: the Amethyst Initiative. The initiative, which means to lower the legal drinking age, has been formally recognized by our school. All of the current statistics on alcohol on campus could be completely transformed in the coming years if this initiative is enacted.
Administrators asked for discussion on the underage drinking issue; let’s start talking.
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