By Kerry Ingram
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Tamara Williams was ready to have a good time on the night of her friend’s 20th birthday. The two had met during their time at Towson University, and they joined several mutual friends for a night on the town. They found a club in Washington D.C., rented a limousine and prepared for a celebration worth remembering.
Williams, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, expected the night to go smoothly. Her friends were dressed up, each wearing the brightest smiles on their way to the club. The group laughed and joked with each other as they waited in line. But their mood would soon change.
Upon their arrival at the D.C. club, the girls strutted to the entrance and were greeted by a bouncer. The man, tall and expressionless, requested a form of identification. With confidence, Williams reached into her wallet and handed him her license. To her surprise and dismay, she did not receive it back.
Williams was 20 years old the first time she got caught with a fake ID.
“We [all] ended up getting our IDs taken by the bouncer,” Williams said. “He said that we could get them back at the end of the night, but we never did because at the time we were leaving, he was talking to a police officer. We didn’t think it would be a good idea [to approach him].”
Williams, who had used her fake ID for more than two years, had never been caught at or near Towson University. But according to an analysis of nearly 600 crimes reported by the Towson University Police Department over two years (2016 and 2017), there were 27 reports of such infractions. They account for just 4 percent of all crimes reported over these two years, but they are nevertheless memorable for those who are caught.
Theft is Towson’s top-reported crime. The other most prevalent crimes at the school – alcohol violations, controlled dangerous substances violations and assault – all mainly occur in the evenings, each hitting a peak between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight. This differs from fake ID usage, which occurs evenly spread throughout the day. It’s important to note that some reported crimes ended up being unfounded, according to TU police.
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Crimes at Towson are most likely to occur between the hours of noon and 6 p.m. rather than at night.
“I think this has a lot to do with where students are,” said Shannon Jacobsen, a sociology lecturer at the College of William & Mary and a campus crime expert. “The vast majority of crimes like theft tend to happen within residence halls or dorms, since students are living in very close proximity with each other and can see other students’ valuables. My guess is that at Towson, if students are commonly finishing their classes in the morning or afternoon and head back to their dorms, a lot of them are going to be there between noon. and 6 p.m. for crimes to occur. After 6 p.m., students may either be studying or heading off campus to other places.”
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Added Jacobsen: “Crimes are always more likely to occur during times of a lot of movement. Whenever there’s a really large number of students concentrated in one space, there’s bound to be some type of crime, even if it’s just petty theft.”
At Towson, March 2016 and September 2017 were the months with the most crimes. March, which includes spring break week, and September, which is the school’s fall move-in time, both consist of week-long periods of student movement and traffic. These are also months heavy in the partying and bar scenes.
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Williams is quite familiar with the campus partying and bar scenes.
“[My] sophomore and junior years, everyone I knew had [a fake ID],” Williams said. “You needed it in order to have a good time going out and partying on the weekends.”
Bars around Towson claimed to have methods for catching fake ID usage, such as having a list of required questions users must be able to answer, or booklets that guide employees on what regular state licenses are supposed to look like. Towson’s Greene Turtle bar often encounters this issue.
“We have guests who try to use fake IDs on a regular basis,” said Jill Packo, an employee at the bar. “Many times, the best way to catch guests trying to use a fake ID is to ask multiple questions, or to ask for a second form of ID.”
The questionnaire system may be a method bars turn to in order to limit ID fraud within their businesses, but students like Williams have found ways around it.
“One time, I used my fake ID in Federal Hill, downtown,” Williams said. “The guy knew my ID was fake and started quizzing me on it, but I knew the answers to all the questions he was asking me and ended up getting in the bar anyway.”
According to Jacobsen, a recent study found that close to half of college students reported ever using a fake ID.
“Fake ID usage itself isn’t typically counted as an individual crime in campus crime reports,” Jacobsen said. “It’s usually placed under a larger umbrella with ‘alcohol violations.’ The most common college crimes are property crime and theft. Those are usually looked at in more detail, and most of these crimes are likely to occur in the late afternoon to evening hours.”
Williams said she knows “about 25 people” who all own fake IDs at Towson.
“[With a fake ID], you get to drink, you get to go out with your friends, and you look cool because everyone knows that having a fake is illegal so you seem like a badass for not caring,” Williams said. “But on the flip side, it is illegal. You could get in trouble, and turning 21 isn’t actually as fun because by then, you’ve been to bars already.”
Added Jacobsen: “Essentially, it’s all about students wanting to fit in. It seems like this will always be a problem on campus since students, and particularly those who live on campus, enter college believing that so much of the college experience centers around social situations. As long as the drinking age is 21 and the average undergraduate tends to be between the ages of 17 and 22, this problem won’t ever go away.”
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