Two of the regulations the University’s Board of Trustees have put in place are in desperate need of enforcement.
The smoke and tobacco regulation, FIU-113, has been in place since Jan. 2011 and it designates the University as “tobacco free.” It uses the power of social enforcement, people asking others to stop smoking, to keep the University tobacco free.
The latest regulation, FIU-115, took effect in June 2012. It regulates how skateboards, scooters, ripsticks, and “other similar devices and high-risk activities” can be used on University property. The regulation says “violators are subject to an order to leave University property by the University Police Department or any University representative having responsibility for the area(s).” Meaning if you are caught using any of these forms of transportation on campus on anything but sidewalks you will get the boot.
If you walk around the University on any given day you’ll see someone smoking a cigarette, a student riding their skateboard to class, or a non-student doing tricks off the Owa Ehan stairs.
That is why the University shouldn’t, in good conscience, leave two regulations of so much importance and with so much universal support in the hands of empty words and social enforcers. The University needs to use real enforcement, not just any kind, but Panther Patrol enforcement.
It’s for the safety of these people that the University use Panther Patrols.
Appointing the most physically daunting applicants from the school of criminal justice, the University could easily form a relatable law-enforcement team devoted solely to the enforcement of these newfound skating and smoking bans; a group with whom University students can reason and debate their rights, as both Americans and tuition-paying students, to smoke cigarettes while skating on campus and perhaps burning an American flag or, worse yet, one of our Worlds Ahead banners; and by whom, should they refuse compliance, they will be promptly beaten, or better yet, issued a ‘social citation.’
They would also be equipped with whistles, high-powered flashlights, fluorescent orange sashes with official Panther Patrol badges to distinguish troops from their fellow students, and of course panther paw handcuffs.
This contingency of students can then make up for the enforcement gap that has been created by said regulations.
Panther Patrols should emulate the functions of safety patrols, familiar to any students matriculated in the Miami-Dade County Public School System, whose main responsibilities are to ensure the safety of students on campus through social enforcement and the raw power of intimidation.
Although the concept of Panther Patrols seems like a silly idea, it is not any sillier than a regulation that has either no means of enforcement whatsoever, or the means of enforcement that will tax the manpower of UPD.
Who knows? Maybe the University can even entice some students to enlist in the Panther Patrol by offering graduation honor cords for distinguished service in the line of duty.
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