By CHRIS POWELL
Students at the University of Michigan’s main campus in Ann Arbor rioted Monday night, along with other city residents, after the university’s men’s basketball team, the Wolverines, defeated the University of Connecticut in the national college championship game. The rioters set 40 fires and vandalized streetlights and street signs. Police made a few arrests.
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Administrators at UConn’s main campus in Storrs expected similar trouble if the Huskies won. Remembering the riots after the Huskies won national championships in 1999 and 2023, UConn administrators had streetlights, street signs, and trash cans removed in advance of the title game. After that game was won rioters did more than $100,000 in property damage on the UConn campus, and there were a few arrests and expulsions. Many rioters were not students but young people who figured that the university would not be prepared to maintain order.
UConn’s removal of streetlights and street signs this week wasn’t just a disgrace, an indication of the university’s low opinion of its students. It was also almost an invitation to misconduct and drunkenness. It signaled that UConn expected rioting and vandalism, considering them normal when college athletic championships are won.
Of course riots frequently follow championships in major-league sports as well. (College sports no longer can be distinguished from “professional” sports, since college sports themselves have gone pro.) But the participants in the riots in major-league cities have not been specially admitted to an institution of higher education, and local governments in major-league cities aren’t yet taking down streetlights and signs in anticipation of rioting.
Such riots keep happening because their participants have little fear of consequences. Criminal law enforcement is weak throughout the country and especially in Connecticut. State legislators and courts here strive less to see that justice is done than that criminals are kept out of prison. Such policy is far less expensive than justice but it robs justice of its crucial deterrence.
Removing streetlights and signs on campus in advance of championship games also confirms that UConn knows that there is little deterrence to student misbehavior. If UConn shows that it knows, potential rioters can take the hint.
So rather than removing streetlights and signs, the university should assign an armed police officer to each one and, if not enough officers are available, ask the governor to dispatch state police officers and even the National Guard to show as much force as necessary to restore ordinary deterrence. Of course the Tolland County Superior Court state’s attorney’s office would have to resolve to be stingy with plea bargains and probations, and news organizations would have to report convictions and punishments. But some respect for the university particularly and public institutions generally might be restored. After all, this year’s national tournaments won’t be the last one UConn teams play in.
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The General Assembly’s Planning and Development Committee has confirmed that state government won’t do anything effective this year about the housing shortage, homelessness, and mental illness.
The committee this week approved legislation formally authorizing people to sleep or panhandle in parks, on sidewalks, or in other public places.
Supporters of the legislation saw it as a helpful response to homelessness. They noted that 20 homeless people died of exposure or other causes outdoors in Connecticut this winter. Of course that is a disgrace, but the legislation won’t get anyone indoors. It will diminish the value to the public of parks and sidewalks. Sleeping or panhandling vagrants will scare people away.
For many if not most homeless people are mentally ill or drug-addicted. Some prefer to stay outside no matter how cold it gets. They need overnight shelters, supportive housing — studio apartments with supervision and medical care on the premises so they can undertake recovery — and, for those incapable of caring for themselves, confinement in mental hospitals.
Those things cost money. Authorizing the homeless, addicted, and mentally ill to sleep and panhandle in parks and on sidewalks is just pretending to care about them. It’s really a rationalization for ignoring them.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 