“Did nothing in particular and did it very well”
-W. S. Gilbert
Next month, as fall season sports are in full swing, the University Police will have installed eight cameras atop the College Park Shopping Center that will be used to identify rioting students in addition to monitoring criminal activity there.
What we can likely expect to see is more actions similar to the post-game celebration of the women’s victorious basketball game against Duke University – photographs of students who’ve committed no crime other than that of thousands of their peers, standing and yelling on Route 1 in an event that University Police passionately refuse to call a riot.
A photograph taken from that event of a running student was obtained by television news shows and flashed across broadcasts. But the photo did nothing to curb rioting or frighten students from doing it again – no one was held accountable and the post-celebratory game tradition is still alive and kicking.
But apparently University Police were satisfied enough with the results that they will continue to photograph and single out individual students who are doing the same thing as the multitudes of students on the street next to them.
Rather than repeating the same tired old scenario, the university should try to deal with the rioting issue proactively. There have been post-game alternatives suggested in the past and the university should consider them seriously. Preventative measures are far more effective than punishments, especially since it is impossible to punish an entire student body that considers riots to be as annual an occurrence as Maryland Day.
The fact of the matter is that officials’ inactivity on the matter has allowed the post-game riots to become the tradition that they are. Thousands of dollars are wasted by the police department each year as county officers arrive on Route 1 way ahead of time – occasionally just to sit and wait for nothing. Rioting is without a doubt immature and reprehensible, but it will be here to stay unless officials are more proactive than they have been in the past.
Today, university President Dan Mote addressed the University Senate in his state of the campus address, warning once again that rioting will not be tolerated and that the campus judicial process will be unforgiving to rioting students.
Last year, the senate demonstrated it can in fact take less than several years to craft and finish a policy important to students. What better forum to create a definitive alternative to revelry on Route 1 than in a 140-member body comprised of administrators, students and faculty, a body that has the power to call in experts, city and county officials and ask them to expound their views on a potential solution?
Instead of warnings and more cameras, which have done little, there should be more discussion and more solutions. Otherwise, the riots will continue to happen and there will be plenty for University Police to photograph.
Our view: Prevention, not cameras, is the way to curb rioting
