Correctional Institution - Essay Example

Correctional Introduction The number of gun crimes has been rising in the United s for the last few decades. Fire crimes raise potential challenges to both legal authorities and society. Firearm-related issues are becoming a potential threat to the academic environment of the Arizona State University (ASU). Although legal authorities plan to allow ASU students to carry guns for self-defense purpose, majority of the students are unaware of sensible use of guns. Experts opine that gun violence in ASU would probably affect the academic efficiency of the university. This paper discusses what specific courses of action can be taken by the University president to address or manage the gun carrying issues among ASU students. Firearm carrying issue in ASU Arizona State University is one of the major research universities in the United States. Like any other research university, it is a very complex learning environment. Currently, the university has over 70,000 college students. According to federal records (as qtd in Hansen), Arizona has the worst gun death rate in the US. This trend is reflected in the Arizona State University also. In the last October, an ASU nursing student murdered a professor (Barb Monroe) at the School of Nursing. The murderer had permission to carry a concealed weapon. In December 2011, a student of ASU was arrested for illegal possession of gun on campus. The student’s handgun accidently discharged while demonstrating to his friend. University officials point out that gun violence is rising in the campus. The bill SB 1474 plans to permit students to carry guns on campus on the assumptions that school environments are safe if students are properly armed (The Daily Courier). ASU officials, including the president and the Police Chief, have strongly protested against the bill. ASU president Michael M. Crow argued that the bill provisions would create regulatory issues in the campus and raise numerous challenges to the police department. However, the issues associated with students carrying firearms could be considerably reduced through some effective intervention policies. As the University President, Crow can eliminate those issues without employing additional staff, raising additional fund, or amending current laws. Some of those strategies are described in the following session. Strict regulatory actions Strict regulative practices can be the most effective correctional approach recommendable for the University President. The President has to be intransigent while dealing with gun violence issues inside the campus because any unfair concession would give a bad moral to other students. The President may give strict punishments to students who illegally keep firearms with them on campus. It would be better to dismiss such students from the college because they are a threat to the whole academic environment. In addition, it may be effective to ban those students from attending university final exams for a period of over five years. Provision for this type of strict regulatory actions may also encourage parents to give more care on their children’s behavior. In addition, this situation may be much helpful to tackle the gun violence issues inside the university campus. Since students with a basic criminal mentality would contribute nothing much to the nation, those policies will not negatively affect the university’s academic environment or the society. Furthermore, the strict punishment would persuade other students to abstain from illegal possession of firearms and other gun related crimes. Awareness programs Evidences show that majority of the shootout cases in schools are the result of instantaneous emotions. That means students do not really know the sensible use of guns. Therefore, the President has to take initiatives to organize gun awareness campaigns in the university colleges for enlightening students regarding the impacts of gun violence. For this purpose, the President can form counseling panels using the university’s professors. It is strongly recommendable to give individual counseling facility to students, as it is a better strategy to convince them about negative sides of keeping firearms. The President must ensure active involvement of parents in the awareness campaigns. In order to reshape a student’s behavior, change must begin from his/her family itself. Hence, such a program would ensure inter-cooperation of parents and college management in preventing students from carrying guns. Moreover, this type of counseling programs would be beneficial to convince students that they are safe without a gun. Well-structured counseling programs may also be capable of turning students’ concentration to academic subjects. When a student focuses more on academic efficiency, he/she would not think about firearms or other weapons. It is also possible to create video clips depicting the adverse impacts of bringing gun to the college. The counseling panel has to collect stories of students who shot at their colleagues and teachers. The panel may also include university police officials as they are in constant touch with gun crimes. Such experiences would really influence students and therefore they may abandon their thoughts of firearms. In short, awareness programs would be a major effective measure to address the issue of students carrying guns on Arizona University Campus. Monitoring programs In addition to effectively executing well- structured awareness programs, the President needs to make arrangements for monitoring the outcomes of such programs. For this purpose, the President may seek assistance of counseling panels or other teaching staff. Since teachers are in constant touch with students, they can easily identify how the awareness programs have influenced students’ behavior. It is also advisable for the President to form monitoring panels of student representatives as they can more freely intervene in students’ matters. Anyhow, such monitoring panels may be effective to assess students’ attitudes towards the habit of keeping firearms with them. These panels would be also capable of identifying students who are more likely to use guns in response to a provocative situation. In other words, the monitoring panels can effectively identify individual students’ characteristic traits and their perceptions about carrying guns on campus. Through this process, the counseling teams can focus more on dangerous gun users among students and thereby significantly reduce the risk of gun violence in ASU. The monitoring panels may also explore situations in which students are more likely to shoot at their colleagues and others. This information would really assist legal departments and counseling teams to identify actual causes of gun fires on the campus. Furthermore, such details may greatly benefit the college management to avoid gun violence situations. Through these monitoring panels, the President can collect timely information about the students carrying guns on campus. The President has to arrange proper management communication channels for assisting monitoring panels to report students’ gun usage information directly to concerned authorities. As we discussed earlier, students who are caught with guns must get strict punishments. Monitoring panels must be allowed to search students’ body and their bags if their behavior and other activities seem to be suspicious. At the same time, the President should ensure that the activities of monitoring panels do not cause disturbances to students. However, effective functioning of monitoring panels would assist the ASU management to obtain great control over students’ gun usage issue. Preparedness The college management must be always prepared to face a gun violence situation. As mentioned above, the government plans to allow students to carry guns on ASU campus for the purpose of self-defense. If the bill turns to law, the college management cannot restrict students from carrying guns on campus. If an armed student creates a threatening situation in the campus environment, officials have only seconds to resolve it. Hence, the President has to take initiatives to provide proper training to college staff to face unexpected gun violence situations. According to Asmussen and Creswell, if the college management learns that a student is creating life or death situation inside the campus, its ultimate goal must be to disarm the student without any unwanted incident. Firstly, it is necessary to gather all relevant information about the particular student and his weapon within minutes. It is particularly important to identify the exact position of the gun. Then, the management staff must check whether there are trained officials (for instance, school resource officer) available. If those officials are not available at that time, it is better to call local law enforcement agency as it is well equipped to manage gun threats (Bond and Brown). The President should never allow untrained college staff to handle a gun threat situation because such an act is more likely to result in additional injuries and deaths. At the time of the gun violence situation, it is essential to immediately pass the information to the concerned school administrators and assign them with different tasks. An individual must be assigned to watch the armed student until trained officials reach to take control over the situation. In addition, administrators must contact the student’s family members to gather other required information if any. It would be effective to list the armed students’ closest friends as they can better assist official to disarm the student. If the presence of the college staff is likely to persuade the student to fire, it would be suggestible to make use of security cameras inside the classrooms. Works Cited Asmussen, Kelly J and Creswell, John, W. “Campus Response to a Student Gunman”. The Journal of Higher Education, 66, 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1995), 575-591. Bond, Bill and Brown, Luanne. “Preventing gun violence in private schools”. Nassp. Web 05 April 2012 The Daily Courier. “Editorial: Guns on campuses a time bomb to disaster”. Web 05 April 2012 Hansen, Ronald J. “Arizonas gun-death rate among the worst in U.S”. 27 Jan 2011. Web 05 April 2012 Read More