NIU’s Judicial Office kept busy with just an “average” semester last spring.

Stevenson South residence hall had largest number of hall violations referred to NIU’s Judicial Office last spring.

According to figures from the Judicial Office, there were 483 offenses ranging from disruptive behavior to possessions of dangerous weapons.

Stevenson South had 106 judicial cases while Stevenson North had 71. Grant South followed with 65 cases and Lincoln Hall was close behind with 55. Gilbert had the least offenses with eight.

“Last spring was average. One thousand offenses per semester are bad, 483 is average,” Larry Bolles, NIU Judicial Office director, said. “It was a very busy semester … not a bad one.”

He said noise and disruptive behavior within the residence halls was the number one problem in 139 cases. However, large groups of people congregating outside the dorms and harassing people, like the pizza deliverymen, attracted some attention.

“Harassing is just one of those things students like to do,” he said. “We monitor the residence halls now though to prevent it.”

According to Bolles, the number one concern to the Judicial Office is underage drinking and the behavior of students who are under the influence. There were 131 alcohol-related offenses, of which 66 involved underage drinkers.

“Those who are underage should not be drinking and the ones who are of age don’t know how to drink responsibly,” he said. “Most of my headaches come from visitors who are only here to party and socialize.”

Bolles encourages students to avoid punch at parties because it generally tends to contain grain alcohol or other combinations of alcohols.

“That is where students get into the most trouble when they drink because they don’t know what is in the punch,” he said.

Bolles said there were 13 drug-related offenses, but none were hard drugs, just marijuana, and that was at a low level.

“We monitor the drug culture, with the help from someone on the drug task force, so we know who is doing them,” he said. “Students aren’t into drugs though, they just want to drink beer, but this is true on all campuses.”

Bolles stated 76 students were referred to substance abuse classes. Two students were sent for alcohol assessment, which occurs when the Judicial Office is concerned the student might have a serious problem.

Bolles said cheating when in alcohol or drug programs is becoming a serious problem. Students are starting to tell on other students, so he advises students to avoid cheating because if they are caught it results in serious actions.

Students who are doing poorly in school are not always the ones causing problems on campus.

Figures by GPA’s show there were 145 violators with GPAs between 2.0 and 2.49 and five violators with GPAs between 0 and .49.

“If you’re doing bad in school, it does not mean you are a trouble maker,” he said. “It’s obvious the GPA doesn’t always matter.”

Statistics on the offenders’ year in school were also average for the spring semester.

Out of 483 cases, 264 were freshman, 95 were sophomores, 62 were juniors, 56 were seniors, and six were graduate students.

Bolles stressed the cases were divided equally among male and females and in some cases there were more female offenders then male. As far as race was concerned, there were 346 caucasian offenders, 106 black, 10 hispanic, five oriental, and 16 unknown.

According to Judicial Office figures, there were 206 warning letters, 17 students were banned from campus, 70 received work assignments, four were removed from the residence halls, three were suspended, 17 received deferred suspensions and there was one deferred expulsion.