Northern Illinois University Violence and Police Initiatives

Communities Blog
1

I go to Northern Illinois University if anyone was wondering, and it seems like violence has only increased since I came to campus in August 2007. I'll be graduating this year, so I can't wait for that; that's a little beside the point though.

I was looking through my campus paper and saw a story about how people throwing parties can now sign up to have the university police regulate their parties. The full article can be found here:

http://northernstar.info/campus/news/article_ae92d8e0-94b5-11e1-929a-001a4bcf6878.html

The article says something along the lines that this measure is being put in place to show that NIU is a safe campus. What I think they mean to say is, this measure is being put into action in order to make people feel safer. Just because this new policy is available to students, does not mean that the NIU campus and the surrounding area is actually a safe place to live.

That being said, I think this would be an effective policy if the laws in this country weren't so restrictive. In case you don't live in the United States, or you just don't know, the drinking age in this country is 21, and drugs ranging from marijuana to crack-cocain and meth are all illegal. This poses a problem when the majority of the students at your university are between the ages of 18 and 22. 

Most college students who are throwing a party are not going to ask for your I.D. at the door to make sure you're over the age of 21. Actually, I'd be willing to bet that 99 percent of the student population has gotten drunk underage. This is nothing out of the ordinary, obviously, but when the university decides to provide a service to the students where police will monitor your party, I doubt any student, who is scheduling a party that isn't affiliated with any student organization, is going to take advantage of this service.

If you do decide to have the police at your party, they will ask for identification if alcohol is being served, and they will arrest you if you're doing drugs or providing alcohol to people under the age of 21.

If the police show up to regulate a party, it is likely that most of the people invited will simply find another party to go to.

On the other hand, I can see why a policy like this would be helpful to students. Violent crime in the area has been on the rise, as can be seen in this article:

http://northernstar.info/city/police_beat/article_9523c2e0-94cc-11e1-b999-001a4bcf6878.html

Before anyone asks, yes, I was here during the shooting in 2008. While it is not as infamous as the Virginia Tech shooting, it was still a profound and serious matter (obviously). Five people died and others were injurred. I was actually on my way to class that day, and I was probably a football field away from the building where it happened when I figured out what was going on and decided to walk back to the dorms. I didn't think to call anyone until I got back to my room and saw the scene unfolding on tv. You could see police surrounding the building from a news helicopter's camera. Unfortunately, the cell phone towers were being overwhelmed, and I couldn't make a call to anyone. I had to use a landline to call my parents to tell them I was alright, and I was letting everyone else know I was okay via facebook and AIM.

I don't know what crime was like on campus before my freshman year, but it has only gotten worse since. We have had at least one murder or shooting incident every single year after the 2008 Valentine's Day shooting. A senior was killed just last year when he was shot in the chest at a party he was throwing at his apartment.

That being said, I can see why the univeristy and the student association would want to implement a service like this, but I don't see it being utilized simply because college students are not going to sacrifice underage drinking and drug use at their parties. College students want to have a good time with their friends on the weekends, and they're not going to risk getting their friends or themselves arrested just in case someone decides to bring a gun to the party, especially when students have to follow these rules to implement the security at their parties:

"Students registering for off-campus events/parties:

Must be a full-time NIU student

Must have party’s location approved by landlord

Assume responsibility and personal liability for event

Parties should have Social Sober monitors

Alcohol can’t be served an hour before event is supposed to end

Sign should be posted at party indicating that the NIU Late Night Ride service is available at 815-753-2222

Signs should be posted at the entrance and at any serving area stating, 'Illinois law prohibits the consumption of alcohol by individuals under the age of 21'" (The Northern Star, http://northernstar.info/campus/news/article_ae92d8e0-94b5-11e1-929a-001a4bcf6878.html)

My solution: legalize all drugs, and lower the drinking age back down to 18 like it was when all of our parents were going to college.

How do you guys feel about this issue? Is this an effective strategy, or is it just another reason to hike tuition rates?

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Well...it'd be awesome if they made the drinking age less restrictive and if they legalized drugs (pot at the very list) but...I don't really foresee that happening for a little while. It sucks, really, that this country treats adults like children. It seems, in this case, they're effectively endangering students at NIU because kids will take a risk and not call the cops to watch out for their safety...

I would guess that the cops won't be called for security duty too often, but I don't know the campus climate there...is the violence always perpetuated by students?

3

Well, if something goes down, people will call the cops, but I don't see anyone ever using this service unless it's a party that's related to a student association. I don't see any legislation passing through Congress to legalize drugs or lower the drinking age any time sooner either.

The violence isn't always perpetuated by students, but there seems to be at least one student victim every single year.

During the shootings in February 2008, the shooter was actually a former student. He was attending the University of Illinois for graduate school, and he had graduated from NIU for his undergrad. he bought some guns and came back to NIU to go on a shooting rampage where he killed 5, injurred others, and then turned the gun on himself. He had a history of mental instability.

There was a shooting my sophomore year, but I don't remember the details because I honestly didn't hear about it until a few years later.

My junior year, a frat boy shot a student in the leg because the frat boy was following a girl back to the dorm who didn't want to speak to him for some reason, and the other student wouldn't let him into the dorm. I was on the third floor sleeping at around 3 a.m. when I woke up to two people arguing outside. A gunshot followed soon after. I picked up my phone to call police, but they were already on their way. The victim survived, and the frat boy went to prison after they found several firearms and ammunition including an AK-47 in his room in the frat house.

The year after that, a football player was shot in a drive-by shooting. The shooter missed his target and hit the football player by accident. I think it may have been gang related. I'm not sure what the end result fo that was.

Earlier this year, a fraternity president got into an argument at a party with another student, and he kicked him out of the house. The student left, came back with a pistol, and shot the frat president in the chest, killing him.

There have been other incidents as well, but nothing specific I can remember. The other crimes tend to include muggings and rapes.

4

Oh, and there was another pretty grusome incident that I forgot about. There was a girl on our campus who went missing last year. No one knew where she was or where she had been the night before but she never came home. It turns out that a townee killed her and burned her body in a forest preserve. They only found bone fragments.

5

Vortex Elgin Community College sees a bunch of attempted kidnappings, and I've seen two people get arrested on campus.  One was for a guy who sexually assualted some chick, the other was for stalking.

6

Really? At a community college? I always just assumed that things like this were more common at state universities. I guess that's just because I've never heard of anything happening at the College of Dupage, which is a community college and is pretty close to where I'm living right now.

NIU and the DeKalb area does have a pretty bad crime problem that only seems to be getting worse though. It's kind of weird in retrospect too, because DeKalb is pretty far west of Chicago (at least 100 miles) and it's in the middle of a bunch of corn fields. I guess it is kind of between both Chicago and Rockford though.

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yea its in the middle of freaking nowhere, but there was the gangs trying to expand out from chicago and elgin so that might be part of that crime rate.

8

Yeah, I've heard rumors about a lot of gang related crime going on in DeKalb ever since I started going to NIU.

And actually...it would make sense for gangs to expand to DeKalb if they're dealing drugs to college students. The black market would be quite ripe for drug dealing.