Preventing Alcohol-Related Problems on Campus: Vandalism.

Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Education Development Center, Inc., 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02158-1060; phone: 800-676-1730; e-mail: [email protected]; World Wide Web: http://www.edc.org/hec/

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9

Department of Education, Washington, DC.

SS9-30-25-001

ED/OPE-95-8

Administrators; Practitioners

Alcohol Education; Antisocial Behavior; Counseling; Drinking; Higher Education; Intervention; Peer Influence; Prevention; School Health Services; School Vandalism; Student Behavior; Vandalism; Violence

This bulletin provides suggestions for the components of a comprehensive approach to reducing student vandalism on college and university campuses. Numerous facets of the problem are addressed, including: the association of binge drinking with vandalism and school policies that tolerate or even facilitate binge drinking; a school's drinking environment; attitudes toward violence; peer pressure; the need to obtain money to buy drugs; and hostility toward the school. The following steps being taken by some schools to combat the problem are outlined: dormitory patrols by students trained in conflict recognition and management; Greek Patrols by fraternity and sorority members who monitor parties to ensure that there is no vandalism, sexual misconduct, fighting, or other misbehavior; controlled access to potential trouble sites such as parking lots; substance-free residence halls; substance-free fraternities; early intervention; and referral to counseling. Schools are urged to approach vandalism as a health problem with emphasis on the offender's abuse of alcohol or drugs, to base prevention programming on family ties, and to refer students who commit noncriminal acts of violence for recommended or mandatory evaluation and counseling. (MAH)

1997

ED400737