Students who enjoy destroying other’s property on Halloween, will have to face community service if they get caught.

A lot of the offenses that occur on Halloween weekend are vandalism. These acts include slashing tires, smashing pumpkins, writing on property with soap or chalk and stealing children’s candy.

Larry Bolles, director of the University Judicial Office said he has “tortures we use only for Halloween,” including serious talks with the offenders about wanting to ruin Halloween for everyone else.

He said he then makes them fix what they have destroyed at their own cost and then assigns them some community service hours.

Those service hours usually consist of work at the recycling center which does not have any heat. “They won’t like that this weekend because it is supposed to get down to 38 degrees,” Bolles said.

Despite the reputation Halloween might have on other college campuses, Bolles also said Halloween has not really been a problem for NIU.

“I just want college students to act like college students,” he said. However, that is not always the case.

Last year’s police beat included many slashed tire reports, by Halloween “pranksters” but a couple of strange events seemed to represent the strangeness of the holiday.

Police reports told of one group of fraternity brothers locking a young man into the trunk of their car, and another young man returning home to find a dead squirrel hanging from a wire by his back door.

A lot of the town schoolchildren will be trick-or-treating in the residence halls, which is safer for them, according to Bolles.

“The kids have less of a chance of finding needles and razor blades in their candy. It has become very popular with the school children,” Bolles said.

“There is a lot of Halloween spirit on this campus,” Bolles said. There will be a lot of theme dances such as a “Grateful Dead” dance and an “oldies” dance, he said. This will be fun for the kids because it will give them a chance to dress up in that generation, Bolles said.