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Ohio State students are rallying to tell police that they don’t deserve to be targeted in a crackdown on alcohol-related offenses.
What started last Thursday as a lecture on campus alcohol enforcement quickly turned into a heated argument regarding the Franklin County Stop Teenage Opportunity To Purchase, or STOP, program. Students met with law enforcement officials at Hitchcock Hall and spoke out about their problems with the program, and offered ideas on how to change it.
Although representatives from agencies including OSU Police and Columbus Police were present it was the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, which administers the STOP program, that ended up fielding most of the questions.
One of the primary concerns among students is that OSU is the only university being targeted in the program, even though the program applies to nine other colleges in Franklin County.
“It feels like Ohio State students are getting persecuted and they’re not even trying anywhere else to do the same sort of programs,” said USG Senate Parliamentarian Brandon Edwards.
“We came up to Ohio State during the celebratory riots and all of that stuff,” said Chief Deputy Stephen Martin, head of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Division, referring to riots that have occurred in the past after football games.
The fact that there haven’t been riots at OSU in a number of years, Martin said, may be an example of the program’s success — which is motivation for law enforcement officials to continue the program here.
Started in 2001 as a county-wide law enforcement collaborative, the STOP program originally focused on stopping teenagers from buying alcohol. The program used paid confidential informants between ages 17 and 19 to see if they could purchase alcohol at carry-outs, drive-thru’s, bars and night clubs.
Although the program was only intended to run through 2003 and the information on the Franklin County Web site is six years out of date, it is still in effect today.
“In 2003, because of the problems on the university, STOP expanded to game days,” said Lt. Shawn Bain, head of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office special investigations unit. Although the program now uses undercover police to infiltrate parties and arrest underage drinkers, Bain said it equally targets point-of-sale operations.
“Most of the criticisms I’ve heard about the STOP program have been tied to the treatment of the individuals and the transport process and the actual booking process,” said Jason Marion, a public health graduate student and student trustee. “It’s just ludicrous to me that we, with the number of people that we’ve historically dealt with, don’t set up a place here on campus to house these people until they can be taken into the custody of someone who’s willing to sign off responsibility for those individuals.”
Alex Kemper, a second-year in engineering, said he was arrested for underage drinking, but his arrest was late at night and his bail was not immediately processed — requiring him to appear in court. When he was taken to the courthouse, he said he was handcuffed to “a hardened massive felon.”
During these lengthy court sessions, Martin said police have to transport hundreds of felons to the courthouse, so it is possible that students find themselves next to someone charged with a more serious crime.
“You just have to understand, that this is a jail cell,” Martin said. “This is probably the most horrible situation to be in, especially as a young person, but it is a jail and that’s why it’s run as a jail. Once you go in there, you are a prisoner. Because you’re from a family that makes $500 thousand a year makes absolutely no difference to us. You’re a prisoner.”
Once football season is through, Martin said, law enforcement officials will meet to evaluate the program. But even if the program fell through, some say it would simply be replaced by a similar campaign.
“If [the STOP program] goes away, I guarantee something else is coming right behind it,” said Glenn Taylor, deputy director of the Ohio Investigative Unit.
USG is asking students to submit their testimonies about the STOP program to USG Vice President Jordan Davis at davis.2370@osu.edu.
