OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOF, Managing editor
KIMBERLY CRATTEFF, Editorial editor
TOM EBLEN, General manager, news adviser
MARRE OZMEK, Business manager
DENNIS HAUPT, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KRUPP, Technology coordinator
JAY STERNER, Sales and marketing adviser
Thursday, January 23, 1997
Jeff MacNelly/CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Editorials
Extending campus lighting fee sets bad precedent for officials
Each semester, KU students are required to pay a campus lighting fee of two dollars. This pays for all lighting capital around campus, which includes the structure and installation of the light poles, but does not include maintenance or upgrades to light poles. The emergency blue phones on campus are not covered by this fee.
This fee was initiated in fiscal year 1994, and it is scheduled to be terminated on July 30, 1997, the end of fiscal year 1997. The University generates about $88,000 each year for this program from student fees. The University then matches this amount. Therefore, nearly $176,000 are spent each year building new lights.
In the early '90s, these lighting improvements were greatly needed. Now, the majority of campus is well lit and great sums of money no longer need to be spent on the lights.
Students do not need pay for campus lighting when the University has funds.
Some major areas still need lights, but a four-year extension of the campus lighting fee, as recommended by the Campus Lighting Advisory Board, is not necessary. The board wishes to not only implement lights in dark areas, but also replace some older lights that are not as efficient as newer lights. This is not what the student fee was established to provide.
Last night, the Student Senate Campus Review Subcommittee recommended to Student Senate that the fee be extended for two years.
But the University has enough money to pay for the necessary improvements. For example, the Kansas Legislature
passed the Crumbling Classrooms Bill last year, which allocates $44 million toward classroom improvements at the University. Exterior lighting improvements are included in this allocation.
Student fees were designed to cover costs beyond the academic realm, such as the Unions, recreational facilities and health care. Security measures should not be the financial obligation of students. As long as exterminating the fee will not send the message to administrators that lighting is not important, there is no reason to keep the lighting fee coming from students' pockets.
The University has funds for the remaining improvements, and student fees need to be minimized. Asking students to pay for extra expenses each time the University needs money sets a bad precedent for officials digging deeper into students' checkbooks.
CODY SIMMS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Study Abroad valuable experience
Increasing interest in study abroad can change students' lives for the better, and the University's administration should continue to support study abroad programs.
One of Chancellor Robert Hemenway's earliest goals was to increase the number of KU students studying abroad to 2,000 by the year 2000.
"If they are getting the message that study abroad is important from all levels, students will pay attention," said Ellen Strembru, study abroad adviser.
Since Hemenway announced his desire to increase study abroad numbers, faculty interest in study abroad programs has increased, Strubert said. She emphasized the importance of involving faculty in study abroad programs and in integrating study abroad into regular class curricula.
Programs such as a spring break trip
The University must continue to support study abroad programs.
to almost 100 museums in Belgium as part of an art history class can help increase the number of students who are able to study abroad, Stuart said.
Increasing the number of students studying abroad is far more significant than the establishment of an impressive statistic for University recruiting materials. Studying abroad gives students the opportunity to discover another culture, and it encourages them to see that the world, a much bigger place than this University, is accessible to them.
using," Strubert said.
The most important benefit of studying abroad may be the sense of empowerment and independence it gives students.
"It's finding out that the whole world is a resource that you are capable of
When in another country, Strubert said, students have to reinvent themselves. Identity tags, such as home towns, high schools, sororities and fraternities and even universities, have little or no meaning to people in another country.
Students who experience life abroad gain confidence that can carry into their personal and professional lives throughout adulthood. By continuing to support study abroad programs, the University administration can help make this experience happen for more students.
"When you're in another country, you have only yourself," Strubert said. "You have to learn to present yourself in any situation."
KELLI RAYBERN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
LA TINA SULLIAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRIETIE BLASH . . . News
NOVELDA SOMMERS . . . News
LUSLEY TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . News
TARA TRENARY . . News
DAVID TESKA . . Online
SPENCER DUNCAN . . Sports
GISA THORNBURG . . Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS . . Campus
LINDSEE HENRY . . Campus
DAVE BRETTENSTEIN . Features
PAM DISIMAN . . Photo
TYLER WIRKEN . Photo
BRYAN VOLK. . Design
ANDY ROHRBACK . . Graphics
ANDREA ALBRIGHT . . Wire
LZ MUSSER . . Special sections
AERGIA VEAZEY . . News clerk
KANSAN STAFF
NEWS EDITORS
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
HEATHER VALLEY . . . . . Assistant retail
JULIE PEDLAR . . . . . Campus
DANA CENTENO . . . . Regional
ANNETTE HOVER . . . . National
BRIAN PAGEL . . . Marketing
SARAH SCHERWINSKI . . Internet
DARCI McLAIN . . . Production
DENA PISCOTTE . . Production
ALLISON PIERCE . . Special sections
SARA ROSE . . . . Creative
DANA LAUVETZ . . Public relations
BRIAN LEFEVRE . . Classified
RACHEL RUBIN . . Assistant classified
BRIDGET COLLYER . Zone
JULIE DEWITT . Zone
CHRIS HAGHIRIAN . Zone
LZ HESS . . . . Zone
ANTHONY MIGLIAZCO . Zone
MARIA CRIST . Senior account executive
How to submit letters and guest columns
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Columns
America is the land of the free. Americans live by this basic principle, and it is one of the defining ideas about what it means to be an American. The United States, although blessed with free elections and a relatively stable political system, is not the land of the free. Each year, the United States government resembles a repressive and totalitarian state more than it does a protector of our freedoms.
Rate of incarceration is too high to justify
The United States government incarcerates more people per capita and in sheer number than any other nation in the world. The U.S. incarceration rate has increased 159 percent since 1980. The absolute number of prisoners has tripled since 1980, from about 500,000 to 1.6 million in 1995. In addition to these 1.6 million, it is estimated that another 3.75 million are on probation or parole. In 1990,
the latest date for which international rates can be compared, the U.S. incarceration rate was four times that of Canada and Great Britain and 10 times that of Japan.
What do all these numbers mean? More people stuck in jail every year. The federal government, which was supposed to have specifically limited powers, has now become so powerful that it leads the world in jails, sting operations, secret police, searches and seizures, paid informants, aerial surveillance, wiretapping and urine testing. Given these facts, the United States can not be characterized as the land of the free, but as the land of the chained.
The common counter argument to the U.S. incarceration rate and seemingly unconstitutional police actions is that there is such a high crime rate that these measures are necessary to protect U.S. citizens. This idea assumes that the justice system is legitimate and that the crime rate has increased accordingly with the incarceration rate. Almost one in three black males 20-29 are under some type of correctional control like prison, probation or parole. One in 15 white males of the same age group are under the same control. Black males constitute the majority of those sentenced to at least one year in prison, and their absolute number has risen 220 percent since 1980. These facts alone suggest that the system is inherently racist and certainly not legitimate.
The media tells us daily about the high crime rate, but is
it as high as we think? Since 1973 the U.S. Department of Justice has published the National Crime Victimization Survey in which crimes reported to police are counted as well as those unreported. As a result, this survey enables an interpretation of nationwide trends in reported and unreported crimes. The April 1996 bulletin states, "Since a peak in the early 1980s the total crime victimizations has decreased. The violent crime rate has been essentially unchanged since 1992, following a slight increase between 1985 and 1991." Actual crime has not really increased, but arrests have. 8.3 million adults were arrested in 1980 compared to 14 million in 1993. Only our awareness of crime, thanks largely to the media and its unbalanced focus on crime, has increased.
Even if the actual crime rate hasn't risen, there is still too much crime and we should lock-up dangerous criminals. This sounds beneficial, but the large increase in the prison population is not the result of more violent offenders being incarcerated, but is a result of the war on drugs. According to the Department of Justice the number of violent offenders fell from 57 percent in 1980 to 45 percent in 1993, although drug offenders rose from 8 percent to 26 percent. The increase in drug offenders admitted to prison accounts for 46 percent of new prisoners since 1980. Proportionally, violent crime offenders are a smaller aspect of our nation's prisons than 15 years ago and are being replaced by drug offenders.
How one feels about the war on drugs and its affects on our freedoms is really a personal choice, but when studied from a cost-benefit analysis, this war is not productive. Although there are dangerous drugs on our streets that should be controlled, the damage caused by many illicit drugs, especially marijuana, is outweighed by the damage that drug laws cause society. I won't drag the alcohol issue into this argument, but will note that violent offenders are more likely to be under the influence of alcohol than all other illegal drugs combined. Continually throwing people in jail for minor drug offenses like marijuana possession is not productive. While overall justice and correction costs, corrected for inflation, have risen 65 percent per capita since 1970, the war on drugs has been a complete failure and a waste of money. Drug use has not decreased because millions of dollars have been spent on programs to stop the importation of drugs. Housing more inmates in our prisons for drug offenses at taxpayers expense costs
Micah Laaker/KANSAN
an exorbitant amount of money and only deterring the entire justice system. Many
Essentially, we are spending more on the drug war and less on education. This arrangement is plain silly and unproductive. Each year the government spends more money incarcerating its population and less money educating it. Without education, freedoms cannot be protected. With more people rotting in jail our nation becomes less like the land of the free and more like a repressive regime that we are told to fear.
Even if one concedes that drugs are harmful and the government is rightfully spending our money incarcerating those who use drugs for recreation, we must recognize that other more productive programs are being sacrificed to finance the drug war. The ratio of corrections expenditures to higher education expenditures has increased 130 percent since 1966.
gminizes the entire justice system. Many Americans, especially young people, believe that drug laws deserve to be broken because they infringe on an American's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because so much time, money and effort is spent on the war on drugs and not on stopping actual violent crime, people see the justice and legal system as bankrupt and really only a political and ideological fight to infringe on the private lives of otherwise law abiding citizens.
Colin Gotham is a Kansas City, Kan., first-year law student.
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Jeff MacNeely/CHICAGO TRIBUNE