Rachel Yeates, Campus Carrier News Editor
This past week, Campus Safety released the 2014 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report. The report showed an increase in reported drug and alcohol violations from 17 total drug and liquor law violations in 2012 to 109 in 2013.
The report is released before Oct. 1 each year in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, which was signed into law in 1990.
The law requires that any college or university that receives federal funding disclose information about crime on and near their campus to the public.
Berry chief of police Bobby Abrams noted that Berry Campus Safety has been “reporting crime statistics since the early to mid 80s, before Clery came out.”
He said he has noticed a definite increase in alcohol violations.
“What you have to understand with these is – when it comes to alcohol – it’s the number of people,” Abrams said. “So there was one night we had 19 in the Ford gym … so it’s not the number of incidents, it’s the number of people involved.”
Abrams went on to discuss the low number of arrests compared to referrals. According to the Clery report, in 2013, 91 students were referred to the campus judiciary board while only one student was arrested.
“If a student is drinking and they’re underage, generally we try to turn them over to [the campus judiciary board] because we don’t really like to arrest students when we don’t have to,” Abrams said. “But when a student is in a condition that they can’t take care of themselves, they’re a liability, they’re a risk, so we have to take them to jail.”
Assistant dean of students for Residence Life Lindsey Taylor spoke about the increase in drug violations.
“Marijuana’s making a come-back,” Taylor said. “So I think we’re just in line with those trends nationally.”
Taylor thinks the increase can be related to an increase in students living on campus. Since 2008, when Berry changed to encouraging four-year residency, the number of students living on campus has grown by about 200 students, which leads to more violations.
She spoke about the impact the introduction of football has had on campus. She commented that the football program attracted more males to Berry – not all of them football players – and changed the dynamic in the school by attracting different types of students who might not have previously considered Berry.
“The addition of football changed the student demographic, but the football program is not responsible for change in incidents,” Taylor said. “When your student body grows and changes, you will see an impact reflected in incidents on campus.”
She thinks a possible explanation in the increase could come from resident assistants (RAs) receiving better training.
“We began readdressing alcohol and drug procedures during our January in-service about four to five years ago,” Taylor said. “We always covered these areas during our August training, but found that RAs needed additional support and training.”
Abrams hopes that students will use the Clery report keep informed about the safety of their campus.
“Unfortunately, I find that – in SOAR sessions and talking to students – they don’t read it, they don’t know about it, and a lot of them don’t even check it,” Abrams said. “The Clery report was designed for prospective students and faculty and staff, to make them aware.”
The report can be found on Berry’s website.