Universities Weblog

It's a topic that has been hot in the news lately: the amount of 'partying' and drinking that takes place among college students. Often, those imbibing are under the age of 21. Some schools look the other way; some issue warnings. Some, like the University of Georgia, are getting a whole lot tougher.

According to Online Athens, UGA officials are no longer issuing mere citations for underage students caught drinking on campus. Instead, students will be arrested.

Most underage drinking citations are a result of complaint calls to campus police for disruptive or inappropriate behavior.

"I don't think that every student here is drinking in excess, but some are," Williamson said.

However, the new policy is just one of several approaches to curbing alcohol consumption, he said.

Solving the problem is a 20-20-60 issue - 20 percent will always misbehave, 20 percent never will and 60 percent will change with varying amounts of pressure and education, Williamson said.

The athens-Clarke County Police Department changed its underage possession policy about eight months ago, said Gary Epps, downtown precinct commander. Before, an underage person caught with alcohol was cited and ordered to appear in court; now, he or she's arrested.

Although he hasn't studied all the data, alcohol-related arrests probably have increased since the policy change, even as the number of underage possession incidents has dropped, Epps said.This an interesting, perhaps drastic, policy change. Will this affect other schools in the nation, and will it ultimately affect the trend of college-age drinking?

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