Drinking Age: Some Food for Thought

At the University of Georgia, kids caught drinking are handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed, and booked into the Athens-Clark County jail. This happens to anyone approached by police and discovered to have consumed alcohol, even kids who are not being disruptive or engaging in other crimes. 

With this in mind, please ponder over these questions:

1. What is more dangerous: driving your vehicle too fast, or being tipsy inside your own dorm room after having had a few drinks hours previously? 

2. Are there 18 year olds who drink but never drive drunk? Are there plenty of people 21 or older who choose to drive drunk and are often the cause of fatal accidents when doing so?

3. Should people who are considered by the law "too young" to drink alcohol be considered old enough to deal with the implications of going to jail and then having a permanent criminal record??

4. Do people deserve to be physically restrained and locked in jail who are doing nothing to threaten public safety or harming anyone else? 

5. Is it fair that adults (bar owners) knowingly sell alcohol to underage kids, and then other adults arrest and take them to jail for it?? What kind of message does this send to our youth?

Just some things to think about.

Is UGA Insane?? Their idiotic reasoning behind jailing underage drinkers

Check out this article at the Athens Banner-Herald:

http://onlineathens.com/stories/122505/uganews_20051225095.shtml

The statements made by UGA administrators and police are idiotic and unfounded. When will our country realize that nothing, and I mean nothing is ever going to stop college students from drinking??

Instead of arresting the unfortunate few who get busted in the sea of partying, why not focus their efforts instead on the bars who knowingly accept fake identification. This way they could attack the problem at the source. But actually, like I've discussed before, they don't really want to stop underage drinking. They want us to drink, so they can profit enormously from court fees and pre-trial diversion programs (which earn about $1 million of revenue a year).

Seriously? 18 Year Old Kids Don't Deserve Jail

At most locations in the United States, underage drinking will get you a ticket/citation, or maybe even just a warning. You will probably pay a fine, or do some community service. You basically get a small punishment for the equally small offense of drinking in college. (I personally don't find anything offensive or harmful whatsoever about first, second, and third year college students drinking alcohol but that is another debate.)

So yeah, most places you get a citation and then you walk away. NOT IN ATHENS! Both the UGA and Athens-Clark County police departments AUTOMATICALLY book underage drinkers into jail. It doesn't matter if it's your first offense or your seventeenth. Get busted drinking in Athens, and you go straight to jail.

Here is a list of reasons why this policy is extremely unfair:

1. Athens-Clark County is one of the only places in the United States where underage drinkers are arrested rather than being issued citations.

2. The simple act of drinking underage, when not combined with any other criminal activities, is not severe enough to warrant physical restraint and a trip to jail.

3. Being in jail often causes students to miss an entire day's worth of classes. This is unnecessary.

4. It's traumatizing. There is absolutely no reason to force a young 18 year old girl off from home for the first time to undergo the terrifying and traumatizing experience of being locked in jail with true criminals who are actually dangerous.

"We'll need these fingerprints in case he ever decides to drink another beer."

How & Why UGA Enables Partiers, then Jails Kids

The University of Georgia is widely known for being a huge party school. The administration claims to hate this image, but their actions show otherwise. They actually WANT you to party, because if no one is partying/drinking they won't have anyone to arrest. And when they arrest you, THEY MAKE BANK. Court costs, probation, and pre-trial diversion fees are ridiculously high.

UGA and Athens-Clark County police do nothing to discourage the wild scene downtown. They never attempt to shut down the bars or punish the bouncers for letting in thousands of underage kids each night with very obvious fake ids.

Instead, they pursue individual kids on a case-by-case basis. In my opinion this is extremely hypocritical. If they actually wanted to stop the partying, they would simply walk into the bars, start carding people, find that probably 90% of the people in each bar are underage, and then shut the bar down and take away their liquor license. However, that wouldn't make money for Athens-Clark County or for the University, so they don't approach things that way.

Additionally, a very simple solution would be fore the university to CHANGE THE BUS ROUTE. Currently, buses pick up loads of people right in front of the freshman dorms well past midnight, and deposit them downtown right in front of the bars. Where does UGA really think all those freshman are headed, dressed to the nines, after midnight??

This is just brief explanation of the unbelievably hypocritical and predatory practices at the University of Georgia. They lay the trap, reel you in, and then you're arrested in the blink of an eye.

Don't Attend UGA: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I would like to warn all prospective students considering UGA to cross this school off your lists IMMEDIATELY!

UGA may seem like an attractive option at first: free tuition via the HOPE scholarship for Georgia residents, a wildly popular football team, and great dining halls.

HOWEVER: There is one HUGE con that makes this school a very undesirable college choice: the campus police. UGA has one of the strictest stances on underage drinking in the nation. Athens-Clark County is one of the very poorest counties in the entire nation. Frequently arresting well-off college kids is one of the ways this place pumps money into the local economy.

Get caught underage drinking in Athens and you're AUTOMATICALLY cuffed and transported to the Clark-County jail (where you will be locked in a cell with a mix of scary thugs and terrified sorority girls.)

Because Athens knows that these arrested students mommies and daddies will do anything to try & keep them out of serious trouble, Athens offers an astronomically expensive "pre-trial" diversion program. Supposedly this looks better on your record than a regular conviction, but employers and grad schools can still find out about the arrest.

Because this expensive program wouldn't profit if a steady number of students wasn't arrested each night, UGA ENABLES THE PARTIERS BY DROPPING THEM OFF IN FRONT OF THE BARS LATE AT NIGHT VIA UGA BUS SERVICE. That's right. UGA's own buses stop to pick up loads of freshman in front of the freshman high rises and the deposits them downtown right in front of the hundreds of bars. It's just a trap waiting to happen.

This is why you should not attend UGA. Do NOT make UGA your college choice! You are better off at basically any other school in the world. Do not come here.

College Shenanigans vs. True Crimes

It's time to stop treating peer-pressured college students like hardened, menacing criminals. Locking up 18 year olds in jail for simply having a drink is absurd and counter-productive. This heavy-handed behavior by the University of Georgia Police and the Athens-Clark County police is uncalled for and unneeded.

Any reasonable person can see that 18 year olds busted for drinking are not a danger to society and do not belong behind bars for any amount of time. 18 year olds who are drinking ALONG WITH SOME DANGEROUS ACTIVITY such as driving, jaywalking, fighting, etc. perhaps deserve to be apprehended, depending on the situation. However, a student busted for simply having a few drinks is not a threat to the community and should not be considered a criminal.

It's time police officers, lawmakers, and college administrators accept the fact that drinking will ALWAYS happen among college students. Instead of singling out a few unlucky students each night and severely punishing them for something as common and widespread as drinking, we as a society should consider some alternatives.

UGA Wants to Cut Down on Party Image? Yeah, Right

It's well known that UGA is frequently rated among the nation's top party schools.

Supposedly some of the administrators have a problem with this. Some people are speculating that this is the cause for UGA's absurdly strict policy of arresting anyone and everyone busted drinking underage. No citations are ever given.

"UGA has been on the party school list for a while, but it’s one we prefer not to lead," spokesman Tom Jackson said in a statement. (Atlanta Journal Constitution http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/uga-named-the-nations-no-1-party-school/nQh5T/ )

Well then, why does UGA continue to do things which support and foster a partying atmosphere. So, UGA administrators, here is a list of things you can do if you truly wanted to cut down on the party image:

-Alter the schedule or route of the Night Bus service. Currently, buses pick students up right in front of the freshman dorms, and drop them off right in front of the bars, every night of the week.
-Make alcohol policies which apply evenly to everyone. Currently, whether or not you get busted usually depends on whether your RA is cool or not. Some RA's who catch underage drinkers simply give them a verbal warning or ask them to dispose of the alcohol. Another RA might call the cops and have you arrested on the spot.
-Provide more activities within walking distances. Currently, Athens has no bowling allies, movie theaters, shopping malls, or any other activities within walking/busride distance from campus. What it does have within walking distance are bars-and LOTS of them. If UGA wants to cut down on the drinking scene, it should use the leverage it holds over the city of Athens to encourage less bars and more legal activities.

The fact that UGA has failed to make any of these efforts in the 11 years since the arrest-only policy was reinstated makes me think that the policy has less to do with reputation, and more to do with revenue and flat-out bullying.

Introduction:Why I Hate UGA

UGA is a horrible institution run by greedy and callous individuals who like to profit over young students' misfortunes. Athens-Clark County is the only place I know of that AUTOMATICALLY books first-time underage drinkers into jail. I am not talking about driving drunk, or being caught with open containers. I'm just talking about getting caught by the cops after having had a few drinks.

Any student at UGA who is caught after having drunk alcohol is arrested on the spot. These young kids get handcuffed behind the back, transported to the Athens-Clark County jail, fingerprinted, photographed, and then locked in a cell to await bond. This is a ridiculously harsh way to treat upstanding young college students  on their own for the first, living in a college culture where drinking is celebrated and encouraged.

It is believed that UGA officials asked their police department as well as the ACC police to begin booking underage drinkers into jail rather than issuing citations like other college towns, to cut down on the party reputation. Well if you want to cut down on the party reputation, how about closing some of the bars or maybe not having a night bus that delivers busloads of kids straight from their dorms to the downtown bar scene every night?? Or how about cracking down on the bars which knowingly serve underage kids?

It is true that UGA has a party image. However, traumatizing young, peer-pressured kids with a trip to jail is certainly not the solution. This is why I hate UGA.