CATALYST

Winter 2007 - Volume 8, No. 2

A Publication of the Higher Education Center for
Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention

FUNDED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

In this issue:

Taking Law Enforcement Seriously in Colorado

Getting House Parties Under Control

Message from the Center Director

Change in a College Community Lessons Learned From the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Q&A With Steven Healy

Network Section

New Network Structure Builds on Old

Welcome New Network Members

Resources

Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools

The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention

Taking Law Enforcement Seriously in Colorado

The University of Northern Colorado (UNC) and the city of Greeley, where UNC is located, take law enforcement seriously when it comes to underage drinking. They have developed a comprehensive program that includes a cooperative effort between the UNC Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Education (DATE) program and campus and local law enforcement agencies.

According to Greeley City Attorney Rick Brady, one impetus for this program was an April 28, 2001, disturbance that took place during a block party near the UNC campus. Authorities estimated that as many as 1,000 people were involved, with rioters setting bonfires and pelting police, who were armed with tear gas and rubber bullets, with bottles and rocks. Several dozen people, including students, were arrested.

“One condition for any plea bargain at the time of their sentencing required these defendants to write apology letters to the community for the damage and> disruption they caused, which were published in the local newspaper. “Because of the number of letters, it took several months to publish all of them,” said Brady.

Part of the town-gown cooperation is a monthly meeting where attendees talk about problems and keep people up-to-date. The meeting brings together university officials and police, local law enforcement agents, including the city attorney, as well as representatives from the liquor industry and state agencies, such as the Colorado Division of Liquor/Tobacco Enforcement, which issues and enforces the terms of alcohol licenses. This community coalition coordinates local ordinances, enforcement efforts, and educational programs to provide the consistent message that underage drinking is not acceptable.

“Enforcement tools in Greeley include an ordinance prohibiting underage drinking, as well as ordinances prohibiting the sale of alcohol without a license and regulating excessive noise to combat loud house parties,” said Officer George Slack, of the UNC Police Department. “We also have a special program for handling underage drinkers.”

“We use the same system regardless of whether the underage drinker is a university student or not. Because the university does not have its own court system, the city has an intergovernmental agreement with UNC, so that when the university police write a ticket it is routed to the municipal court, and the city attorneys prosecute those cases. We take a stepped approach so that if people are repeat offenders they have more severe consequences the second time through,” said Brady.

One feature of the program is the use of a negotiated plea agreement for a deferred sentence. According to Brady, defendants enter a contractual plea bargain where they plead guilty to their offense.

“The judge then agrees to hold those charges for a year and not put it on their permanent record. As long as they complete certain conditions the charges are dismissed, so they can keep their record clean. That means that if they want to get into graduate school or get a job they don’t have any alcohol charges on their official record,” said Brady.

According to Slack, typically the plea agreement requires defendants to complete a six-hour alcohol education class provided by the university’s DATE office, which costs them $60. In addition, they are required to do 12–24 hours of community service and pay court costs. Drinkers with high blood alcohol levels who have had to go to detox or the hospital, were involved in another crime as a result of their drinking, or are second offenders also are ordered to wear an alcohol ankle monitor for two weeks. And, a copy of the plea agreement is sent to the underage drinker’s parents.

“They absolutely hate having a letter sent to their parents. We can’t force them to do that because they are over age 18, but if they want a plea bargain we require it—that’s our leverage. If they don’t want us to send the letter, then we are not going to offer a plea bargain. They will have to take their chances and go to court. Technically, an underage drinking offense has up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail, neither of which happens very often. We have had some high fines, but in terms of going to jail, the longest we have ever sent someone to jail was for a month—and that was a case of an adult, not a student, and more for them to dry out,” said Brady.

For second offenders, the fine amount and the length of community service go up. They go back for more alcohol training. And the only way they can get another plea bargain is if they agree to wear a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor (SCRAM) unit around their ankle.

SCRAM is similar to an ankle bracelet someone would wear for home detention. Instead of monitoring a person’s location, it measures the alcohol in an individual’s system every 10 or 15 minutes and then electronically transmits that information to police headquarters. Second offenders are monitored for at least two weeks to a month to make sure that they are not drinking. If they violate a third time, the judge has the option of putting them on probation, the offense goes on their record, and they will wear the SCRAM unit for a much longer period of time—three to six months.

“I read about the SCRAM unit first being used in the state of Michigan. We started using it a little over a year ago in Greeley, and it seems to have worked well so far,” said Brady.

SCRAM measures alcohol through perspiration. If a person takes it off an alarm sounds and alerts headquarters that the wearer has tampered with the unit. The unit holds the monitoring information for a certain period of time. Under the court order, those on probation are required to download the stored information to headquarters periodically, which provides the court with a report at the end of the required period on whether they have complied.

“We have a pretty high compliance rate with SCRAM—probably 85 to 90 percent. Not very many offenders come back a second time. Defendants have to pay for the cost of the unit, which is about $10 to $15 a day,” said Brady.

Brady says that while he is very happy with the SCRAM project, he thinks that the parental notification for the 18- to 21-year-olds has been just as effective.

“College-age offenders absolutely hate the parental notification. For the most part we have gotten very cooperative parents who say, ‘We guarantee you this won’t happen again.’ I think that anything we do is doubled or tripled at home, particularly for college students, because parents can threaten to cut off funds or pull them out of school. They have more leverage than we do, so when we can bring them into the process it’s a good thing,” Officer Slack said.

“The most important aspect of the success of our efforts is the partnership-based approach we have taken. Rather than trying to manage the alcohol problem on our own, UNC police work closely with the Greeley police to enforce existing laws, with the Greeley Municipal Court and the UNC Department of Housing and Residence Life to ensure students receive university sanctions when they are caught drinking illegally, with the DATE office and the university’s Wellness Education Program to help students learn about the dangers of irresponsible drinking, and with the communitywide Coalition Against Underage Drinking and Impaired Driving to develop longer-range strategies to reduce underage drinking,” said Slack.

Another good example of that cooperation is the way that the UNC and Greeley police departments work together on the fall “party patrols.” These saturation patrols by teams of campus and community police that focus on student neighborhoods are conducted during the early weeks of fall semester to stop parties where alcohol is being served to minors.

Greeley and UNC police departments also have a mutual aid agreement to help one another as needed. UNC police have the capacity to monitor Greeley police radio traffic to listen for party calls close to campus, or assist when Greeley requests aid. The mutual aid agreement also allows UNC officers to write Greeley municipal tickets for underage drinking when the offense occurs on campus.

In addition to the six-hour alcohol education class required by the court, the UNC DATE office staff also dispatch peer educators to work the tailgate area at football games to deter underage drinking, participate in a number of committees aimed at increasing awareness on the dangers of high-risk drinking, and provide education across campus on alcohol use and abuse.

For example, during summer orientation, incoming students attend “Stop, Look, Listen,” which is UNC’s comprehensive safety program. This two-hour workshop explores a variety of health and safety issues geared toward promoting personal health and safety, and it features discussions concerning sexual assault and alcohol consumption. Students are informed of the underage drinking laws and policies and the consequences of violations. As students arrive on campus, door hangers in residence halls remind them of alcohol laws and policies and also list alcohol-free events on campus.

In 1999, UNC’s collaborative approach to prevention and enforcement was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools as an effective campus-based prevention program. The Department periodically awards model program grants to campuses to identify, enhance, and further evaluate their alcohol and other drug prevention efforts and to disseminate information about their programs to other campuses where the programs might be replicated. The grant in 1999 contributed to the UNC’s current drinking prevention program. Editor’s note: For more information about SCRAM units, go to
http://www.alcoholmonitoring.com.

For more information on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools’ model program grants, go to http://www.ed.gov/programs/dvpcollege/ index.html.

Getting House Parties Under Control

From Gainesville, Fla., to Amherst, Mass., to Reno, Nev., college towns across the country are taking measures to get a handle on unruly house parties, which are a sore point of contention in neighborhoods near campuses.

One approach is through education efforts, such as the Good Neighbor Program at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y., which encourages students to respect neighbors and their right to enjoy a quiet, clean, and peaceful neighborhood and which provides tips on eliminating the need for police to crash a party.

When education and persuasion don’t keep parties from getting out of control, another approach is through greater enforcement of existing noise ordinances and underage drinking laws. For example, when Party Patrol officers in Gainesville, Fla.—home to the University of Florida—receive complaints about a party, some focus on getting the event under control while others concentrate on determining who threw the party. If officers can identify the hosts, they will be charged, Capt. Ed Book of the Gainesville Police Department told the Gainesville Sun (Aug. 23, 2006).

In the fall 2006 semester, more officers were assigned to the agency’s Party Patrol than in the previous spring, and police took a closer look at those hosting parties that neighbors complained about and at where there was underage drinking.

“We want to set an early tone each fall because, what happens, the students understand the laws more as they go on. We’re trying to send a message,” Gainesville Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Keith Kameg told the Sun.

In Amherst, Mass., police officers, area residents, and university officials have begun to crack down on disruptive house parties at the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts. As of Oct. 17, 2006, town police, as part of increased enforcement, had arrested some 200 students since the start of the academic year, a third more than in the previous year (the Boston Globe, Oct. 17, 2006).

Other cities are enacting new ordinances as well as beefing up enforcement in order to hold party hosts accountable when events get out of control or when underage youths are served alcohol. Such measures can take the form of nuisance ordinances, house party ordinances, or social host ordinances. Nuisance or house party ordinances often focus not just on the student hosts of a party but on landlords and house owners as well. For example, on Nov. 6, 2006, the City Council of Columbia, Mo., home to the University of Missouri, Columbia, passed an ordinance that defines nuisance parties as social gatherings of 10 or more people where any of 16 prohibited activities occur.

Nuisance party violations include underage drinking, drug use, fighting, public urination, blocking traffic, noise violation, and littering. In addition, landlords can be prosecuted if police determine there have been three nuisance parties on the property within a year. Violations also can result in revocation of a landlord’s license to rent property in the city and in fines of as much as $4,000.

Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman “said the new law was designed to urge landlords to take steps to keep their tenants quiet before police are called. ‘For too long, the neighbors have had the frustration that the police have not had the tools to help them,’ he said. ‘It really isn’t designed to punish the landlords’ ” (Columbia Daily Tribune, Nov. 7, 2006).

According to the Nevada Sagebrush (article by N. Morton, posted Nov. 28, 2006), in Reno, Nev., “the Old Northwest Neighborhood Advisory Board, which covers most of the housing around the university, has been considering a proposal to impose fines on houses that draw police and emergency services because of unruly parties. . . . If the proposed ordinance goes through the Reno City Council next year it would require offending houses to post some sort of marking or notification prominently on their property.” In the same Sagebrush issue, an article by C. Leon stated: “Since September 2005 all of the Neighborhood Advisory Boards in Reno have been working on a social host ordinance that proposes ‘party houses,’ houses that are repeatedly frequented by police for becoming a public disturbance to their neighbors, be subject to fines.”

“Typically owners would just be told by police to stop. But unless their disturbance warrants a fine such as underage drinking, no fine would be charged,” University of Nevada, Reno Police Services Lt. Kevin Youngflesh told the Sagebrush. According to the Sagebrush, “With the ordinance, fines would increase as the visits increased. . . . Additionally, repeat offenders might need to display a red sticker in front of their house, warning neighbors of their party house status.”

In East Lansing, Mich., home to Michigan State University, its noise ordinance is violated when excessive noise disturbs neighbors and is plainly audible outside of the property. Police can issue a ticket every half hour with continued noise, and as more tickets are issued (either throughout the night or the year), the higher the fine becomes.

East Lansing Director of Code Enforcement and Neighborhood Conservation Howard Asch said his department informs a tenant’s landlord if a noise violation has been issued, because a landlord could potentially be held responsible if violations continue. The landlord would be notified within 10 days of issuance of the violation (the State News, Oct. 16, 2006).

“The nuisance party ordinance is violated when a party disturbs neighbors, can pose damage, or actually does damage to neighboring property. Guests can cause the party host to be held responsible for the nuisance violation, because the people who live in the house or apartment are responsible for all guests.”

Other jurisdictions are enacting social host liability ordinances, which are directed specifically at individuals who host parties on private property where underage drinking takes place. James F. Mosher, J.D., director of the Center for the Study of Law Enforcement and Policy of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, has developed the model Social Host Liability Ordinance for the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department (see sidebar below).

Ventura County is home to three community colleges serving more than 39,000 students (Ventura College, Oxnard College, and Moorpark College), California Lutheran University (2,900), and the recently established California State University-Channel Islands (3,100). A countywide telephone survey found that a majority of drinking, especially among underage students, takes place in private homes, underscoring that county’s interest in promoting social host ordinances.

In California, 25 cities and four counties either have or are considering some type of social host ordinance to address underage drinking. Ventura County has been a leader in this area. Currently, seven cities and the unincorporated areas of Ventura County have social host ordinances in effect. Both San Diego and Berkeley also have adopted social host ordinances as a way to control student house parties where underage drinking takes place.

“A social host ordinance is a strategy for changing social norms around the idea that it is okay for young people to binge drink at parties,” said Mosher.

A Model Social Host Liability Ordinance Social host ordinances often focus on the criminal liability of the host of the party. But the model Social Host Liability Ordinance developed by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation’s Center for the Study of Law Enforcement and Policy (CSLEP) for the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department focuses on the response costs involved when police and emergency personnel are called to deal with the often tragic results of an underage drinking party. “Deterrence usually works best when the penalty is swift and certain,” said Stacy Saetta, J.D., primary author of the model ordinance. “With criminal liability, you have to go through a criminal court case, which may take considerable time, and, in the end, the defendants may be penalized, or they may not. We wanted a stronger deterrent level. We’re not trying to punish; we’re looking at how the community will benefit.” Under the model ordinance, it is suggested that social hosts would receive a strong warning and perhaps a fine for the first offense. Should they offend again, “Costs can really pile up,” Saetta said. “They could be in the thousands of dollars.” “This is a much more effective way to bring these issues to the community,” said James F. Mosher, J.D., CSLEP director. “With the cost-recovery provisions that reimburse local governments, there is a much greater likelihood that these ordinances will be enforced.” Among the highlights of the model ordinance described in a report are: It recognizes that the occurrence of loud or unruly parties on private property where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons is harmful to the underage persons themselves; is a threat to public health, safety, quiet enjoyment of residential property, and general welfare; and constitutes a public nuisance. It recognizes that persons responsible for the occurrence of loud or unruly parties on private property over which they have possession or control have a duty to ensure that alcoholic beverages are not served to, or consumed by, underage persons at such parties. It recognizes that landlords have a duty to prevent the occurrence of loud or unruly parties, including those where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons, on private property they lease to tenants, even if they do not have day-to-day, physical control of the property. It recognizes that law enforcement, fire, or other emergency responders often need to respond multiple times to disperse underage drinking parties, resulting in a disproportionate expenditure of the public safety resources on these parties, delaying police responses to regular and emergency calls, and reducing police calls to the rest of a community. It recognizes that cities and counties require a variety of enforcement strategies to abate underage drinking parties under varying circumstances and that present law constrains the ability of law enforcement to deter underage drinking parties and other gatherings. As a primary strategy for deterring underage drinking parties on private property, it imposes a civil fee against social hosts (including tenants) and/or landowners (including landlords) for the recovery of specified costs associated with providing law enforcement, fire, or other emergency response services on multiple occasions to the scene of a loud or unruly party where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons. It provides the option of imposing criminal penalties in cases of egregious circumstances or recalcitrant offenders. To get a copy of the model social host ordinance report, please go to http://www. venturacountylimits.org/vcl_mshl_jan06.pdf.

Message from the Center Director

It is axiomatic in our field that we cannot accomplish our prevention goals without the help of good partners. Often we align our partners in coalitions, and while those coalitions’ memberships may vary depending on the character and needs of a given campus, it is uncommon to find an active, successful coalition that doesn’t include a member from law enforcement. The daily focus of those in law enforcement is to maintain the safety and integrity of the community, and on most campuses this brings them into daily contact with the high-risk alcohol and other drug use and violence (AODV) that we are trying to prevent.

This issue of Catalyst includes several frontline perspectives on the vital relationship between campus AODV staff and law enforcement. For example, Princeton’s Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Steven Healy’s remark that combining campus police’s two roles of first responder and prevention educator makes the message clear: As a key player in the campus environment, law enforcement’s partnership in AODV prevention extends our reach and deepens our effectiveness. University of Northern Colorado’s (UNC) Police Officer George Slack underscores this message when he describes UNC’s work on underage drinking: “The most important aspect of the success of our efforts is the partnership-based approach we have taken.”

Finally, the University of Illinois Student Senate’s 2005 post–Final Four weekend resolution thanking the local police for their role in keeping the peace highlights one of the key goals of a partnership—the students appreciate our efforts to help.

Change in a College Community Lessons Learned From the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

High-profile sports events at colleges and universities have all too often provided the conditions for so-called celebratory riots, with lots of finger-pointing between students and law enforcement officials in its aftermath. But not so at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which was in the finals of the 2005 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship tournament. Over the three-day finals weekend in April, the campus community experienced less than $500 in property damages. Lt. Holly Nearing, of the Champaign Police Department, characterized the spring 2005 Final Four experience as extremely positive. In fact, after all was said and done, the UI Student Senate passed a resolution thanking the police for their role in keeping the peace.

Speaking at the Summit on Best Practices in Responding to Developing and Ongoing Civil Disturbances in College Communities, convened Nov. 10–11, 2005, at Iowa State University, Nearing credited the successful Final Four weekend to the collaborative efforts of the UI and Champaign Police Department, as well as emergency medical specialists, fire personnel, prosecutors, and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency under the National Incident Management System framework
(http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICS Resource/assets/NIMS-90-web.pdf).

According to Nearing, Champaign has had, for the most part, few problems with crowd disturbances. For example, in the 1980s, community responses to reduce Halloween disturbances eventually made those student parties so “boring” that, by the 1990s, they had virtually disappeared. Nearing said that the campus community did not suffer from the studentpolice conflicts found at some campuses.

Celebratory Riots Committee
In 2003, the university administration formed the Celebratory Riots Committee composed of campus and community police; city, student, and university leaders; and media representatives to study deterrence measures. Nearing said that with the prospect of number-one ranked Illinois’ advance to the 2005 Final Four, the committee transitioned from a study committee to more of a working committee, assuming the mission of maintaining order and protecting property during the tournament’s concluding games.

In the run-up to the NCAA playoffs, specific activities got under way, including inquiries by the committee into sports-related incidents at other Big Ten campuses, a “good behavior” media campaign involving student leaders and Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber, tactical planning in collaboration with state and local enforcement agencies, and restrictions on the sale of alcohol in bottles or cans that might be used as projectiles.

Preparing for the Final Four Weekend
As Illinois continued its progress toward the Final Four weekend, Nearing said that police foot patrols stepped up police visibility in the Sixth and Green streets entertainment district, the most likely venue for public gatherings. The idea was to reinforce the role of police as peacekeepers, break down the mutual anonymity between police and students by promoting personal communication, and apply consistent enforcement. “Celebrate safe and celebrate smart” was the positive slogan, a stay-on-point message that became a common chorus in the media from the campus and the police.

On Saturday, April 2, Illinois defeated the University of Louisville to advance to the Monday championship game against the University of North Carolina. Both games were played in St. Louis and were televised in bars, residence halls, and private homes adjacent to the Champaign campus. According to Nearing, the police made a conscious decision to bolster expectations that students would act responsibly, so they did not wear riot gear, although it was kept close by, and there was a distribution plan if the gear was needed.

“Frankly, we wanted our officers to look less aggressive and to give them a subconscious message that they were not there to hide behind riot gear,” said Nearing. Pre-event officer briefings for the weekend emphasized restraint and discretion in the number of arrests. Nearing said that officers were encouraged to communicate proactively with arriving participants, urging them to have a good time, confiscating cans and bottles, and asking friends to look after friends. In addition, officers were told that they should avoid getting tied up with minor arrests or becoming targets in conflicts.

“We told our officers to expect that the crowd would be celebrating. We had a plan in case the gathering turned violent, but we didn’t want to make police a target or cause for the event turning violent,” Nearing said.

“We knew everyone would be going to Sixth and Green and essentially decided to concede that intersection to the celebrants, but we had a plan to contain any disruptions that got started. The state police riot control team would replace our municipal force if we determined to withdraw. During briefings, commanders told officers that the plan was to avoid police officers being targeted by unruly partygoers,” said Nearing.

Numerous precautions were set in place. Campus administrators and student leaders joined police in working the crowd on both nights to deter unruly behaviors. The police had numerous fire extinguishers on hand, and trash containers were emptied to reduce the amount of readily available flammable material. The Public Works Department was on standby. The state police team was also nearby if needed as backup, but was not called upon.

“On the night of April 2 (following the Illinois win),” Nearing said, “15,000 celebrants gathered and, for about an hour and a half, moved from one area to another in a relatively peaceful manner. We had a few fires and just five arrests for minor altercations. April 3 was a day off [from NCAA tournament play], so we took advantage of the lull to tweak our plans. On April 4 [the night of the final game] all officers were deployed in regular uniforms so they could be distinguished from participants.”

Illinois’ loss that Monday night did not deter 20,000 celebrants from turning out, and, Nearing said, “We experienced 25 fires and about 15 arrests, but were otherwise in good shape.”

Nearing said that her team was stationed on the rooftops overlooking the intersection both nights, which provided a very good sense of what was happening.

Beach Ball Diplomacy
That final Sunday, the team bought about 20 beach balls. The previous Friday police officers observed that celebrants tossing beach balls back and forth provided them with harmless entertainment. “Our officers tossing beach balls (from rooftops to those on the street) kept the crowd on our side,” said Nearing. Students used their cell phones to photograph friends and police in friendly poses, engendering more goodwill as new waves of celebrants arrived on the scene.

Nearing credited the success of the Final Four weekend strategy to a number of factors, including:

• UI’s role in instructing the community on celebratory riots and encouraging expectations of responsible student behavior;
• Consistent enforcement of minor infractions throughout the year, so students expected a police presence in the run-up to final games;
• Lack of history of clashes between students and police;
• Having officers wear regular uniforms rather than riot gear; and
• Instructing officers to expect celebration but to communicate with celebrants to exercise care.

According to Nearing, it was the planning and collaboration of the university Celebratory Riots Committee with the Champaign Police Department to create an integrated set of prevention and response strategies that enabled the Urbana-Champaign community to celebrate in a mostly positive manner.

For more information on UI’s approach, see “Preparation for and Response to Celebratory Violence: A Community-Based Approach,” Campus Law Enforcement Journal 35(5), 2005.

The full report, A Summit on Best Practices in Responding to Developing and Ongoing Civil Disturbances in College Communities, is available at http://www.dps.iastate.edu/nspcd/summit_proceedings.pdf

Q&A With Steven Healy

Steven Healy, director of public safety and chief of police at Princeton University, became president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) on July 1, 2006. He has been a member of the IACLEA Government Relations Committee and was the IACLEA regional director for the North Atlantic Region, and he has been especially active on issues surrounding the 1990 Jeanne Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities to disclose information about crime on their campuses and surrounding areas. He is a member of the Review Group of the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention. Before taking his post at Princeton he served as chief of police at Wellesley College, Mass., and as the associate director and director of operations of the Department of Public Safety at Syracuse University, N.Y.

Q: What role do you see that law enforcement can play in preventing alcohol and other drug problems and violence among students?

A: We play a major role, not only because we’re usually the first responder to many situations involving either high-risk drinking or violence but because we also play a role in prevention education. One of the great benefits of being connected with the Higher Education Center is that we are able to learn more about the state of the research on prevention methodologies for reducing high-risk drinking and violence on college campuses. It’s also really critical for us to develop closer relationships with the other practitioners on the prevention side. I hope my presence on the Higher Education Center’s Review Group facilitates that relationship.

Q: Regarding your role as first responder, how do you deal with your “image” on campus? Do students generally see you and your staff as protectors or as bad guys—the “enforcers”?

A: On one hand we want to be viewed as the protectors, the ones who are trying to keep the campus community safe. On the other hand, unfortunately, we often are involved in cases where we’re enforcing campus rules and regulations or enforcing laws. So it’s a balancing act, but I believe it’s one that many colleges and universities do very well. They’re able to develop substantive relationships with students so students understand that when we do intercede in an enforcement role it is because we’re trying to maintain community safety. Even in those instances where we’re involved in enforcement, I think most people understand that it is really for the overall good of the community and not because we’re trying to target one person or another.

Q: Is clarifying your role something you do in a proactive way to develop relationships with students?

A: I think there are a number of programs that campuses have implemented over the years to develop that relationship. It’s like any relationship. It’s not a one-shot deal. You have to establish it when students are in their first year and you have to maintain it throughout the student’s entire stay at the institution. Here at Princeton, for example, we not only spend time with the incoming class in an orientation program, but we also have officers who are specifically assigned to residential areas to serve as liaisons so students see them not only in an enforcement role but in a service role as well. It’s an ongoing process, also like any relationship. You don’t just establish it from one meeting, it has to be ongoing and proactive, and students have to really understand what you’re trying to do in your relationship with them.

Q: What about your relationship with the community’s law enforcement agencies, given the sometimes negative attitude of students toward those agencies? Is there a problem with that?

A: I think it varies from region to region and campus to campus. Obviously as the campus public safety professionals, we have to serve as a liaison with the local law enforcement community, but I think we also serve as educators for local law enforcement because our campuses are different from their communities.

Campuses are basically self-contained communities that generally have their own ethos and have very structured programs to try to assist students when they get into trouble with alcohol and other drugs and violence. So, in many cases students tend to view the campus police much more often as an entity that is trying to help them and sometimes view outside law enforcement as an enemy of some kind. We all have to work toward making sure that the community understands that everyone in policing— the campus police, the local police, the state police—has a fundamental purpose and mission and that is to provide safety and security for the community.

Q: Do there tend to be structural problems in developing cooperative activities between community police and campus enforcement people? Do these entities readily work together or does such a relationship have to be nursed along?

A: It has to be nursed. When you think of campuses as cohesive parts of the wider community you realize you have to work on that relationship as well. It’s not something that happens on its own. It has to be worked on on a continual basis. I think there are a lot of examples around the country of institutions that have done very well in developing strong synergistic relationships as opposed to antagonistic relationships.

Q: When students get into trouble, what seems to be the most effective response? Is the prospect of administrative punishment, such as suspension or expulsion, more effective as a deterrent than penalties administered by outside law enforcement?

A: I think that issue is really offense-based. There are many offenses, many situations, that a college or university disciplinary system is much better equipped to handle, because not only is there a disciplinary aspect there is also an educational component. None of these problems will be solved or dealt with through a one-dimensional approach. You have to have a multidimensional approach. It has to be about education. It has to be about accountability, with disciplinary action. It has to be about counseling when that’s appropriate.

In my view the criminal justice system tends to deal with things in a one-dimensional manner. Colleges and universities are much better equipped to deal with discipline problems with a more comprehensive approach. Of course, there are some offenses where accountability needs to be through the local criminal justice system. In most cases, colleges and universities have campus penalties as well when a student is sent through the criminal justice system. I think a number of high-risk drinking situations are dealt with very effectively through college and university disciplinary systems.

Q: You have been particularly involved in the 1990 Jeanne Clery Act. From your standpoint, is it accomplishing what it is intended to in terms of providing information about crime on campus?

A: I’ve been intimately involved with the Clery Act for a number of years and was involved when the legislation was passed in 1990. The Clery Act has forced colleges and universities to look closely at how they deal with specific issues of crime on campus, and I think that’s good. It has forced us to examine our policies, procedures, and practices.

The overall goal of the Clery Act is to ensure that students and parents are making wise, educated decisions based on safety about where the students should go to school. If you talk to students I don’t think many of them are even aware of what the Clery Act is, nor do they really pay attention to crime statistics. Parents, on the other hand, will tell you that they pay very close attention to levels of crime. But is it the number one factor they consider? I don’t think so. Is it necessary, is it right that we provide potential students and parents with truthful information about the state of safety and security on a campus? Absolutely. People have a right to make informed decisions. Without the statistics that the Clery Act requires us to provide, people are not necessarily making informed decisions.

Q: What about the effect of the Clery Act on campus administration? Is the Clery Act making administrators more conscious of the importance of safety as something they should be concerned about?

A: That’s a difficult question to answer. It depends on the individual institution. The majority of college and university administrators care about the state of safety on their campuses and take significant steps to ensure safety. For the few campuses out there that didn’t pay attention to crime problems in the past, the Clery Act has given them impetus to do so.

Q: Putting the Clery Act aside, are lawsuits and court decisions and liability issues involving colleges and universities also making administrators more conscious of their responsibility toward safety?

A: People use those decisions as guides— things we need to pay attention to. In that respect I don’t think we’re any different from any other industry. When there’s a court decision, you step back and say, “How does this affect us? How well are we positioned?” There are a number of different forums that address these issues. The Stetson University College of Law’s National Conference on Law and Higher Education
(http://www.law.stetson.edu/CLE/seminars/HiEd07Pre-RegForm.pdf) has been going on for the last 25 years. Its sole focus is to keep college and university administrators up-to-date about the legal field and how it is affecting higher education. Obviously, premise liability is one of those things that has an effect on how we do business on campuses. At the end of the day, we are landlords and have obligations to provide a reasonable level of security to people who either are invitees or guests on the campus.

Q: Where does IACLEA fit in this picture?

A: IACLEA’s primary purpose and goal are to advocate and promote campus public safety. IACLEA was formed in 1958 when a few of what were then called “campus security directors” got together and said they needed to have an association. There are a lot of different policing specialties—federal police, municipal police, railroad police, and so on. They have a lot in common, but each has its own uniqueness. These directors got together and decided to have an association that would advocate for what is unique about our type of policing. Primarily that’s what we’re engaged in now. We try to advance public safety for education institutions. We provide educational resources, advocacy, professional development, networking, and over the last few years, post-Sept. 11, we are increasingly involved in delivering emergency management and domestic preparedness training to our members. We’re an international organization, although the vast majority of our members are in the United States.

Q: Do you have some specific IACLEA agenda items you want to address as president?

A: I have probably more than I need to have. I became president in July, and I’m starting to hone in on the things I want to get done. IACLEA has 1,600 members, and I am going to call on each and every one of them to try to help me get things done. There are a couple of areas I want to highlight. In the 1990s, we focused necessarily on ensuring that colleges and universities were prepared to implement the Clery Act. We spent a lot of time on introspection, looking at ourselves and our campuses to prepare ourselves. This forced us to pay little attention to the external relationships we should have been developing. Since the late 1990s and through the leadership of some very strong presidents of IACLEA, we’ve begun to develop our external relationships. One of the things I want to do is take this to the next level by identifying those constituent groups that we should be dealing with, that we should have some kind of substantive relationship with, and partner with them. I am going to form a task force to review the key constituent groups that we should be working with and figure out how we can develop and maintain those partnerships in a systematic way.

Also, we’re going to have a membership drive. Right now our members represent about 1,000 schools and I think there are nearly 6,000 higher education institutions in this country. If we want truly to say we are the primary advocate for campus public safety, we need to represent closer to 50 percent of those eligible institutions, so we’ll be working on that as well.

We’re also going to undertake an effort to develop a certification process for campus public safety professionals. Certification in other industries is kind of the hallmark, an indicator that you are qualified to do what you do. I’d say 99.9 percent of our chiefs out there are very qualified to lead their agencies, but we don’t have a certification process.

In addition, IACLEA has been funded through the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to start developing a national center for campus public safety. The beginning of that will be identifying and hiring someone to lead what we’re calling a fellowship program to figure out how we go about setting up the new national center. The center will serve primarily as a research arm—a developer of best practices for safety and security for colleges and universities.

New Network Structure Builds on Old by Joan Masters and Carla Lapelle

In 1987, when the U.S. Department of Education established the Network Addressing Collegiate Alcohol and Other Drug Issues (Network) as a voluntary organization whose member institutions agreed to adhere to a set of standards aimed at reducing alcohol and other drug problems at colleges and universities, little did it expect the Network to grow to more than 1,500 members nationwide. In the almost two decades it has supported campus prevention efforts, the Network has evolved to better meet those needs.

For example, in 1997 the Network engaged in a yearlong review of the Network Standards that have always been at the heart of the organization. In 1998, as part of a review of its own standards, the Network started collaborating with the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (http://www.cas.edu) to bring more congruence between the CAS and Network Standards. As a result of this review the Network Standards were organized in the following five areas: policy, education and student assistance, enforcement, assessment, and campus community collaboration.

In addition, changes in the internal governance structure in 1998 marked the Network’s movement to its next level of organizational maturity. These changes resulted in features such as fixed terms of office, a leadership electoral process, and a system of standing committees that reflected the Network’s renewed issue and action orientation. That new committee structure included member services, public relations, and professional development. Another change was the establishment of a National Council of Advisors in 2000. This group of senior administrators and national organization leaders advises the Network’s Executive Committee on future directions for the Network.

For some time, regional coordinators and the Network’s Executive Committee had been concerned about the current organizational structure and the resulting inequities, such as the absence of clear definitions of regional coordinator responsibilities, variations in the size of regions, variations in the number of regional coordinators in the regions, and budgetary support. So, in spring 2005, with guidance from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, an ad hoc committee was formed to make recommendations on restructuring the Network. Committee members included two members each from the Network’s Executive Committee, the group of regional coordinators, and the Council of Advisors. The work of the committee was facilitated by a liaison from the U.S. Department of Education.

This restructuring addresses a natural organizational progression and is designed to help the Network better serve its member campuses. The reconfiguration committee worked to develop and clearly define appointment guidelines, terms of service, and performance expectations for volunteers now called regional directors and state/territory coordinators. The geographic regions also were reconfigured to better represent and serve the nation’s campuses.

The Network’s newly configured regions are:

• Alabama-Florida-Louisiana-Mississippi;
• Alaska-Hawaii-Pacific Territories;
• Arizona-New Mexico-Utah;
• Arkansas-Oklahoma-Texas;
• California-Nevada;
• Colorado-Montana-Wyoming;
• Connecticut-New York-Rhode Island;
• Delaware-New Jersey-Pennsylvania;
• Georgia-North Carolina-South Carolina;
• Idaho-Oregon-Washington;
• Illinois-Wisconsin;
• Iowa-Kansas-Nebraska-Missouri;
• Indiana-Michigan-Ohio;
• Kentucky-Tennessee-West Virginia;
• Maine-Massachusetts-New Hampshire- Vermont;
• Maryland-Virginia-Washington, D.C.;
• Minnesota-North Dakota-South Dakota; and
• Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands.

This new structure will strengthen the Network as a national consortium of institutions of higher education professionals aimed at sharing and disseminating information to help curb alcohol and other drug abuse as well as violent behavior among college students.

Joan Masters is the chair of the Network’s Executive Committee and coordinator of Partners in Prevention, University of Missouri-Columbia. Carla Lapelle chaired the reconfiguration committee and is the associate dean of student affairs at Marshall University.

For more information about the Network, go to http://www.thenetwork.ws.

Resources

For resources on enforcing laws and policies, click on the following publications from the Higher Education Center’s publications collection:

Complying With the Drug-Free Schools and Campuses Regulations [EDGAR Part 86]: A Guide for University and College Administrators

Law Enforcement and Higher Education: Finding Common Ground to Address Underage Drinking on Campus

Prevention Update: “The Role of State, Community, and Institutional Policy in the Prevention of College Alcohol Problems”

Catalyst Spring 2005 Vol. 7, No. 1

Catalyst Spring 2006 Vol. 7, No. 3

Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education

Catalyst is a publication of the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention.

Editor: Barbara E. Ryan
Production Manager: Anne McAuliffe
Graphic Designer: Shirley Marotta

Center Director: Virginia Mackay-Smith

Other Staff: Olayinka Akinola, Kellie Anderson, Tom Colthurst, William DeJong, Elisha DeLuca, Beth DeRicco, Jessica Hinkson Desmarais, Gloria DiFulvio, Amber Dillard, Emily Esworthy, Kathie Gorham, Rob Hylton, Linda Langford, Anne O’Neill, Michelle Richard, and Helen Stubbs

Our Mission
The mission of the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention is to assist institutions of higher education in developing, implementing, and evaluating alcohol and other drug abuse and violence prevention policies and programs that will foster students’ academic and social development and promote campus and community safety.

Get in Touch
The U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention
Education Development Center, Inc.
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02458-1060
Web site: http:// www.higheredcenter.org/
Phone: 1-800-676-1730; TDD Relay-friendly, Dial 711
Fax: 617-928-1537
E-mail: HigherEdCtr@edc.org

How We Can Help

• Training and professional development activities
• Resources, referrals, and consultations
• Publication and dissemination of prevention materials
• Support for the Network: Addressing Collegiate Alcohol and Other Drug Issues
• Assessment, evaluation, and analysis activities

This publication was funded by the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education under contract number ED-04-CO-0137 with Education Development Center, Inc. The contracting officer's representative was Richard Lucey, Jr. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. government. This publication also contains hyperlinks and URLs for information created and maintained by private organizations. This information is provided for the reader’s convenience. The U.S. Department of Education is not responsible for controlling or guaranteeing the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of information or a hyperlink or URL does not reflect the importance of the organization, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed, or products or services offered. Last Update: May 4, 2007