In the past two decades a new form of crime has developed — the crime of noise pollution.

Noise pollution is disturbance by excessive decibel levels created by loud music, loud people or loud parties.

The Ames Police Department has had to deal with these noisy situations quite often recently, with 63 noise violation citations given out in 1996 and 76 given out in 1997.

Although these figures may seem high, they are small compared to the total number of noise complaints given to Ames Police in the past two years. In 1996, there were a total of 747 complaints, and 719 in 1997.

“What we are concerned about here is excessive noise,” said Ames Police Sgt. Randy Kessel.

“In a residential area, we can allow 60 decibels between 7 a.m. and midnight. After that it drops to 50 [decibels] until 7 a.m.,” he said.

Although there may be problems on campus involving excessive noise, as of right now there are no ordinances covering campus noise problems.

“We don’t really want to get involved with it — it is a city violation,” said Capt. Robert Bowers of the Department of Public Safety. “The noise ordinance really only applies off campus.”

Although the noise violations may not be applicable on campus, residence halls still regulate the noise level in the buildings.

“It’s normally a problem at the beginning of the semester — we have a lot of freshmen that like to play their music loud,” said John Wheeler, hall director of Wallace Hall. “But through their own realization that they need to study, it normally calms down within the first two weeks.”

This year’s statistics provide little hope for a decrease in noise violations, with 402 complaints and 28 citations already given from January to July 1998.