Look around the Ames area any day and what do you see?

Chances are, you’ll see at least one police car, whether it be the police or DPS. They cruise their beats every day, keeping watch over our quiet city.

In partial credit to their efforts, Ames has one of the lowest crime rates of college towns in the United States.

We may be safe from violent crime most of the time, but recent efforts by both the Ames Police Department and the Iowa State Department of Public Safety are clouding those efforts.

Recently, the city police and DPS implemented programs to curb acts perpetrated in large part by young people. These programs are intended to halt underage drinking, skateboarding, bicycling and noise violations.

Unfortunately, these “crime” prevention ideas are nothing more than attempts to harass the least motivated part of the city’s electorate.

These programs serve to fill the city and university coffers with extremely unreasonable fines and penalties.

About two weeks ago the Ames Police’s Special Operations Unit announced that their underage drinking citations increased by 30 percent over last years figures. This “special” unit is the most visible unit, especially if you frequent Ames area establishments.

I hope if there is ever a serious crime in the city that it doesn’t happen during the weekend. If it does, the police won’t be able to reach the scene since they’ll be to busy watching the bars like hawks.

Underage drinking isn’t the only area the local boys are cracking down on. If you are speeding on your bike or run through an empty intersection, watch out! The bike cops will be after you. The two Ames police agencies now have officers on bikes to keep tabs on two-wheeled travelers.

These bikers with a badge will also pull you over to write you a ticket if you don’t have your bike registered.

That makes sense. Instead of telling riders to get their bike registered without citing them, write them big tickets so the city can make more money and Mr. Policeman can get promoted! Maybe they’ll buy him a shiny new bike!

If you ride a skateboard, you’re out of luck as well. It is now illegal to ride your skateboard anywhere on campus or in Campustown. Uh oh. I guess that means we’ll have to get skateboards for the police now, so they can be on thrasher-alert.

Instead of the city taking any productive steps like making a park for these youngsters, they decide to take the heavy handed approach through citations and penalties.

Luckily, local businessmen are in the final stages of building such a park.

Don’t have a party in Ames either because The Party Patrol will be after you!

If your party is making a lot of noise (over 55dB), then get ready to pay about $107! If you want to tap a second keg at your party, don’t let the police see it. They say having two kegs violates state bootlegging laws (?!), and will confiscate your kegs and fine you.

The DPS is getting into the act also. Instead of patrolling campus (like they should), they are now extending their jurisdiction and stopping people on city streets. With only about 25 officers for the 24,000 students of this school, I think they should probably stick around campus instead of stopping people for illegal right turns on Lincoln Way.

These new measures raise one big question in my mind. What happens if crime does become a problem in Ames?

Will the police still worry about bike speeding and skateboarding if we have a rise in violent crime? I certainly hope not. With officers busy stopping bicyclists and walking through the bars it makes me wonder how our officers would respond to such a situation.

Policemen who have enough time to worry about how many kegs are at your party should realize how lucky they are. I wonder what some of their reactions would be if they worked for the police in Chicago or New York. Even if they spent a week as a cop in those cities I think their perspective would have changed.

It was stated earlier that the serenity of the Ames area was due in part to the local police.

The people of this city deserve credit for that as well. This is one of the quietest communities I have seen, and the citizens, including young citizens, are as much to thank for that as any other group.

I want to point out that this article is not intended to be critical of policemen and policewomen in general. They have an incredibly tough job to do, and don’t receive nearly enough money or respect for it.

However when the motto “protect and serve” becomes “harass and penalize,” then the police are not doing the job they were hired to do.

For those this editorial is criticizing, there is a message you should take with you.

Remember that though you are the law now, there was a time when you were less than perfect. You were once as exuberant and boisterous as those you now silence.

Though these young people may be bending or breaking the rules, remember that there was a time you were one of them. Lighten up.

Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.