Zack Jenio
As we continue through the “Underage” series, I want to continue building upon the ideas previously established to analyze the current strategies employed by law enforcement during tailgates and discuss how they can be improved in order to decrease citations and violations in a sustainable way. Last column, I discussed the over-policing issue at The Station, and for this column, I’ll analyze the policing patterns on the tailgating lot and university police’s educational enforcement approach.
First and foremost, it is unsure, due to the lack of targeted research, if the strategy of over-policing on the tailgating lot has reduced disciplinary referrals for liquor law violations. The NC State Clery Reports from 2017 and 2019 do not specify what percentage of the violations and arrests are from Carter-Finley/Fairground lots. However, the general trend is that the disciplinary referrals have slightly decreased, yet fluctuate around 350 offenses, indicating that current strategies aren’t reducing the crime rate significantly, but are merely maintaining it. I believe that the negative consequences associated with the current policing patterns in combination with the lesser-emphasized educational enforcement approach are not effective in helping reduce offenses and keeping the student population safe and well-informed.
To further understand the benefits and consequences of the current policing patterns, the broken window theory and the deterrence theory can be applied.
The broken window theory is a criminological theory which states that visible signs of crime will lead to more crime; e.g., more underage students consuming alcohol would encourage the idea that the behavior is okay. As a result, law enforcement began to apply the “stop-and-frisk” method, where they have the authority to stop and search anyone behaving suspiciously. The hope with this is to issue more citations and arrests, which would lead to the deterrence of the behavior (deterrence theory) and an overall decrease in crime, as research has proven criminalizing the behavior and establishing a reasonable consequence achieves this goal.
Although crime may be lowered when analyzing the raw data and statistics, one must take into account the humanistic consequences of the “tough on crime” approach to policing. When the broken window theory style of policing was applied to lower socioeconomic communities in Newark, New Jersey, rifts between law enforcement authority and the community ensued and led to an increased distrust between the two. As this broken window theory targets minority communities, the general consequence of mistrust between the local community and law enforcement can be applied.
Research has proven that increasing penalties is not enough and has little or no effect on recidivism, or reoffending. Therefore, if legislatures and law enforcement truly want to decrease the number of underage alcohol violations at tailgates, then there must be increased awareness and education associated with punishments.
Although the educational enforcement approach that Major David Kelly of the NC State university police described in a previous interview is a great first step, there is room for major improvements, specifically with preventative education. This would be providing the education prior to confrontations, so that students have the opportunity to learn about tailgating policies and procedures in advance — for example, a handbook regarding all of this information available online.
As mentioned above, it is impossible to tell if the policing patterns in tailgating lots are truly reducing the number of alcohol violations, but without an educational approach and campaign, research has supported the idea that crime rates will not decrease to a level that law enforcement would prefer.
The fifth and final column in the “Underage” series will discuss the age-old question of “Should we lower the drinking age?” through the context and lens of NC State tailgates analyzing the benefits and consequences thereof.