The chief was prompted to propose this legislation when his department received a complaint about an individual who was showing graphic photos on his cell phone to a group of females.
“We did a background check on him and noticed he was a registered sex offender,” Jaccuzzo says. “It alarmed us because he was on campus and we were unaware of him.”
At that time, a sex offender was only required to register with the sheriff’s office where he was living and going to school. Then, that office was obligated to tell the campus. The law didn’t hold the sheriff accountable for this, nor did it specify who at the school should be notified.
The new law, however, puts the onus on the sex offender. Failure to register with campus police could lead to his or her arrest.
When Nicholls State is notified by the sex offender, it then places that person’s information on the campus Web site that students can visit.
Public Housing Policing Methods Work for Colleges Too
For the past five years, Nicholls State has been rated by a local television station as the university with the lowest crime rate in the area. When Craig Jaccuzzo became chief of police, he believed he could apply his previous experience using the administrative authority of the public housing section director to cut crime on campus.
“The administrative process is successful because it corrects a student immediately for his actions,” he says. “If we have infractions on campus, yes, we can charge [the student] criminally, but the process takes nine months. They usually forget what they did, pay a fine and don’t learn from it. Just like when you are raising a child, you correct them immediately for their actions. It’s the same thing at Nicholls.”
Jaccuzzo uses the example of a student who has been caught fighting or drinking: “We’re going to put you through judicial where you are going to learn from what you’ve done the next morning. This curtails their behavior quickly. It also gives them the relationship that lets them know we are not here to ruin
their career. The only record we want to give them is a degree.”
The chief says his biggest challenge in implementing this approach, however, wasn’t the campus administrators or students — it was the officers.
“Too often police get in their minds that you hook ‘em and arrest ‘em,” he claims “Police work is problem solving and preventing crimes from reoccurring. When they do occur, resolve them at a rapid speed.”
Note: Campus Safety is now accepting nominations for the 2012 Director of the Year Award program. For more information and to submit your entry, visit www.campussafetymagazine.com/DirectorOfTheYear.
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