According to (Misleading) Numbers University of Iowa Greeks More Likely To Be Arrested Than GDIs

Rob Fox12 years ago

More like “University of Iowa Greeks More Likely To Be Awesome Than GDIs!” Amiright? Eh? EH? If you’re not having after bars in jail then you’re not fucking doing it right.

There may actually be something to that though. With things like the Princeton Review’s Top Party Schools list, which ranked the University of Iowa second in 2012, it’s hard to know how seriously to take the rankings. Usually with these lists there is always plenty of room for debate. I tend to take the poller’s word for it though, if only because I personally have nothing more than a basic knowledge of most of the schools listed. That knowledge is usually either, “they’re a major conference school and good at football, they must rage,” or, “they’re a major conference school and bad at football, they must REALLY rage.”

Regardless of what actually proves which party school parties harder than other party schools, one damn good indication of a school’s ability to rage, in my experience, is how often said school shows up in a potentially unflattering, but always entertaining story on my Google Newsfeed. By that metric Iowa and Alabama are absolutely dominating the rest of the country.

Today, like so many other days, the University of Iowa popped up in my newsfeed. This time with a story about the higher arrest rates among Iowa Greeks as compared to their GDI counterparts.

Last school year, 9.9 percent of UofI fraternity members and 6.7 percent of sorority members were cited or arrested by police at least once, according to data provided by the Office of the Dean of Students dating back to 2009. By comparison, the citation and arrest rate was 7.9 percent for all male undergraduates and 4.4 percent for female undergraduates last academic year.

That follows the trend of a higher arrest and citation rate for Greek members for at least the past three years at the U of I. Over that period, rates peaked in 2010 with 15.1 percent of fraternity members and 7.4 percent of sorority members being charged by police.

I won’t to act like Iowa Greeks don’t do more illegal shit than Iowa GDIs, they probably do, but not by the margin indicated in these blanket arrest and citation numbers. Yes, on any given night there may be a group of pledges roaming Greek Town like a pack of Vandals, fueled by whiskey and vague orders to “fuck shit up.” But on that same night how many GDIs are sitting in their dorms, ripping a bong, and passing around a bottle of Congress Vodka that they distilled through a Brita so that they could have a smooth tasting vodka girls like without having to pay too much? Quite a few, I’d guess. The only difference is they’re hiding in their dorms…plus no girls showed up so it’s pretty quiet in there too. What? You couldn’t even spring for Svedka? It’s like twenty bucks for a handle. Grow up.

So…sorry the Greeks party? It’s more like sorry that police know they party, and know where they party.

There are three kinds of lies, as they say. Those are lies, damned lies, and statistics. These arrest numbers are definitely skewed by the fact that police are looking for Greeks. Why? Because they hate Greeks? No. That’s stupid, college conspiracy theories are about as asinine as, well, actual conspiracy theories. Did you know that Barack Obama is an evil socialist mastermind trying to bring the U.S. under a thousand years of Kenyan rule? And that George W. Bush is a high ranking member of the Illuminati? See? Stupid. Greeks get busted so often because the police are lazy. Greeks tend to commit their “crimes” in concentrated, well known areas. Greeks tend to be louder and easier to spot as well. Simple explanation.

If there’s a party in a dorm room chances are some RAs are going to break it up and nab maybe a couple people involved while everyone else scatters. Then they might alert the police. There’s also the problems Iowa City police are having busting off campus parties because students won’t answer the door for them. Doors > Iowa City police. Keep that in mind when considering their laziness. If there’s a party that gets busted at a fraternity house then the police are the first in, ready to write a ticket and sporting a half chub at the possibility of being able to taser someone.

None of this accounts completely for the difference, but it illustrates how misleading stuff like this can be. Those numbers could be a lot more similar if attention was given equally. Either way, rage on Iowa Greeks, and the next time you get arrested, put on your blackout drunk lawyer pants and claim that you’re the victim “social profiling,” because that’s totally something a drunk pre-law student would say.

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