Jail N' Bail a $14,000 success

Patty Maturo
Editor-in-Chief

The SCSU Police Department and Beta Mu Sigma members took a chance this year and did a fundraiser like none Southern has ever held in the past. 

Officer Tom Madera said the goal of Jail ‘N’ Bail was to raise $2,500 since it was a new experience for the campus and, therefore, they didn’t know what to expect—they raised over $14,000.

Jail ‘N’ Bail, which has been done on other campuses in the past, enabled students or faculty issue an arrest warrant for anyone on campus, for $5.  After the warrant was issued, the campus police and a member of Beta Mu Sigma picked up the individual, handcuffed him or her and then escorted the person to the mock-jail, which was donated by the Crescent Players.

According to Madera, the tent with the jail located in the academic mall combined with the fact that the arrestee was able to see who had him or her arrested resulted in many warrants being purchased on the day of the event.  According to Madera, only 31 warrants existed at the start of the event on Wednesday morning, but in the end they had over 150.

“We were backed up by almost two hours at one point because we had so many people filling them [the warrants] out,” said Madera.  “People who were set to be arrested at noon were being arrested at 1:30.”

According to Madera, the police department and members of Beta Mu Sigma set three goals at the beginning of t he semester for the event: to bring the campus community together, raise awareness for Special Olympics and raise $2,500. 

“No one had any idea it would grow as big as it did,” he said.  “The atmosphere was great; there was lots of excitement.  And it was a good time of year to do it—during Spring Week.  Hopefully this will become a Spring Weekend event.”

According to Madera, the event wouldn’t have been possible without help from many organizations across campus, including Student Government, WSIN, Southern News, the Crescent Players, Student Affairs, John Young and the IT department and Rich Glinka, who provided the live camera feed across campus. 
Madera said he is confident now that the campus community is aware of the event that it will grow to be even bigger next year. 

“It’s going to be hard to top this year,” Madera said.  “It’s unheard of for a first-year event to raise this kind of money.  But there’s no doubt in my mind that next year we can beat last year’s total.”

Students and faculty were arrested and had to spend the day in jail until their bail was posted.  All proceeds went to
Special Olympics.