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Police-student relations is group's focus

For The Lantern

Published: Sunday, November 15, 2009

Updated: Monday, November 16, 2009 20:11

A new student group on campus is working to address the damaged relationship between students and campus police officers because of problems related to underage drinking.

Members of Raising Issues and Taking Action hope to launch an open discussion within the Ohio State community about the issue.

The organization has created a proposal with roughly 350 student signatures of support. As a general premise, the organization believes that the drinking age should be lowered. However, the focus of the group's arguments center on the broken trust between police officers and college students age 18 to 20.

The proposal points to five main consequences of the current minimum drinking age: a negative relationship between students and police officers, a higher rate of binge drinking, a higher rate of taking dangerous roads and alleys when inebriated to avoid contact with police officers, a distraction for police officers away from more serious crimes, and students' lack of reliance on police officers in times of emergency.

While the student members recognize that lowering the drinking age on a national level is an unrealistic goal, they are working to improve the disjointed relationship between students and law enforcement. Members are most concerned that college students avoid calling the police because they fear getting in trouble.

According to the proposal, the group "believes the university should push for fairer treatment of students, focusing more on those who are actually causing danger to others rather than students who are simply under the age of 21."

Raising Issues and Taking Action was founded in Spring Quarter 2009 by Ruthie Lee, a third-year in marketing. After writing an essay for a comparative studies course, Lee became infuriated by the way youth and law enforcement interact regarding the drinking age.

The group was originally comprised of 20 students, but after the Student Involvement Fair in September, roughly 120 students signed up for the Raising Issues and Taking Action e-mail list. Although the organization is still in its beginning stages, the executive board is working to plan an open forum with a campus police officer to discuss rights and debate personal opinions.

Members have been in communication with Javaune Adams-Gaston, vice president for Student Life.

"We definitely want college student input from both sides [of the argument]," Lee said. "We want to make sure this group is respectable, staying within university policy, but we also want to make a difference.

"We need to bring this issue up to more influential individuals," Lee said.

The federally funded program, Stop Teenage Opportunity To Purchase (S.T.O.P), has led to an increase in undercover police on campus. Members of Raising Issues and Taking Action believe such programs are not solving the underlying problem of underage drinking. The police force is focusing arrests based on the age of an individual instead of the individual's actions.

Students who want to get involved, express their opinions or become active in open discussion of the issues are encouraged to e-mail the organization at raisingissuestakingaction@gmail.com. 

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2 comments

Ruthie Lee
Tue Nov 17 2009 12:36
The group isn't about telling police officers to go against their job and "ignore" what their call of duties require. It's about actually changing the policies as a whole. Law enforcements are put into place for a reason-and right now I think they truly believe that it is protecting those who are underage (or maybe all they want is our money, but I highly doubt that). Either way, we need to bring out awareness to the community that the enforcements and the procedures they are doing now aren't being effective with stopping underage drinking... in fact, it's probably causing more problems like those mentioned in the article and by our group.

Being college students ourselves, we're not just going to sit around and take it. With drunk busses, treatment of 19-20 year olds, and arrests to those who are peacefully sitting on their porch, this issue needs to be brought up community wide and there needs to be a switch from punishing those for a specific birthday, to punishing those who are actually being a danger to others or themselves, regardless of age.

As for the forum, it's not about an argument. It's about a discussion between students and police officers to open up a time for students to ask questions anonymously directly, without fearing what others or the law may think of them. This can range from "personal opinions" to what our actual legal rights are. It's supposed to be a place where people feel safe to talk about things that seem to be pushed as "taboo" and will be proctored in order to keep a peaceful forum setting.

This group isn't about complaining and yelling at the ones enforcing laws we "don't like." It's about taking action and changing our community as a whole to better the entire society with respectable and legitimate reasons.

Morgan
Tue Nov 17 2009 08:54
Problem: several federal grants, and accompanying laws, require police to take action when underage drinking is SUSPECTED, and give very little leeway in regards to this. It is not, in essence, in the local police officer's discretion, to not take action even if the U-21 isn't violent, belligerent, etc., because of these federal mandates. They let it go, and get caught, they get flak from their supervisors, and risk funding for the entire department.

Think of it this way, you have to fill out a ton of forms at work, and most of them you could write with whatever pen you wanted. However, there's ONE that requires a number 2 pencil, and if you don't, you get in a lot trouble. You're going to find and use a no. 2, even if there's not one around and 16 black pens are right in front of you.

Don't bitch at a cop, even in a forum setting, because they're required to enforce a law you don't like. Some of them think it's B.S. too! But I can tell you that the cop who shows up is there because they were required to go by their agency, and doesn't care what your "personal opinions" are, since that doesn't change anything about their job. If you have a problem with this, call up MADD and tell them what a wonderful thing it is that they started a total witch hunt, and how it's eating up resources in an already high crime area. And while you're at it, call your congressman.







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