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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

JMU "Three Strikes" policy and the data

What is the "Three Strikes" policy?
" Once the Office of Judicial Affairs has found a student responsible for an on-campus or off-campus alcohol or durg violation, they will receive a sanction and a strike.  After being found responsible for three alcohol or drug violations, a student may be suspended"
(on the web at: www.jmu.edu/judicial/student/studentfaq.shtml)

This policy says "may" not "shall" and therefore is not a mandatory outcome. Looking at the data from Judicial Affairs it is clear that this is not a very frequent sanction. In the Fiscal Year 7/1/2009 to 6/30/2010 the total number of "Suspended from University" was 35.  That is out of 3575 sanctions and 2426 violations.  One has to wonder why JMU does not use this powerful incentive for behavioral change more frequently?  This is where I believe it shows evidence of the JMU administration enabling and colluding with the negative alcohol culture by not holding students accountable for their alcohol behavior misconduct, even after three strikes. One has to wonder how many times does a student have to binge drink, to get caught and brought up before judicial affairs three times?  This policy is the institutionalization of enabling. In my opinion this is JMU directly being responsible for supporting the negative alcohol culture and contributing to harm and injury to students.

1 comment:

  1. Where did you get your information aboutthis? Just curious

    ReplyDelete