2 Fraternity Brothers Caught Breaking Into Sorority House
 

2 brothers from the University of New Mexico's Pi Kappa Alpha chapter were caught trying to break into the Pi Beta Phi house.

Excuse: They wanted to "look for secrets and stuff and get dirt on them (the Pi Phis)".

Best line from the boys? One asked if the charges would be dropped if he apologized. :rolleyes:

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/educati...-into-sorority

Sounds like a pretty harmless prank to me. Give 'em some community service hours and be done with it.

Breaking and entering is a harmless prank? Interesting.

/Not a fan of pranks

Prank or not, ill intent or not, they were caught in the act of breaking the law. This prank will cost them.

While they may truly have had no intent to bring harm to any of the girls, as a parent of hopefully a future sorority woman, I dont want to receive a call telling me boys broke in/attempted to break in to her sorority house for a prank or otherwise.

As an advisor and former Facility Corp. President, I can think of many reasons why this isnt humorous. If that second story window was someone's bedroom they broke in to, would it be funny then? I doubt it would be for the girls sleeping in there. What if a member's bed happened to be under that window with the member in it? Would it be a funny prank if one of those boys accidentally fell on her? It wouldnt be to me.

I agree.

We could talk all day about what could have happened, but as far as what actually *did* happen, there was no property damage and nobody was hurt.

Do I think there should be consequences? Sure, but they've already served a night in jail, and that is probably far worse than a lot of college students will deal with for doing a lot of far stupider things.

What if it wasn't two students, but rather two adult males who weren't affiliated with the school at all? Would you feel the same way?

What if someone broke into your house in the middle of the night... would you not want them arrested because there was no property damage and no one was hurt?

So.. because some students might not have been punished for doing other stupid things, these two shouldn't be punished for doing this?

ETA: The guys SAID they were breaking in to "look for secrets and stuff," but hell, if I were really breaking in to steal/vandalize property, assault someone, or possibly rape them, I'd probably say the same thing.

You just never know.

I'm sure they did it because we're known to keep our secret stuff easily accessible and also, we leave documents with dirt on all the sisters out where people can see them.

Wait a minute. This might be ritual information for us. Maybe I shouldn't have revealed this and the delete button isn't working. Mods!!!!!!

No, I wouldn't. I don't know the campus culture, but if it "happens all of the time", as the men claim, then I don't see why this is different from TPing or forking or whatever other stupid prank is common on that campus. For all we know, the Pi Phis stole their class paddle last week and this was their attempt to get it back.

There is definitely a double-standard, where women can sneak into a frat house and it's cute, and then men try to sneak into a sorority house and they are suddenly hardened criminals.

They did not break into the house. They looked around for an open window or a loose screen and did not find one.

No, I'm saying they have already spent a night in jail, they will likely receive consequences from their fraternity, and I would, if I were the house mother/advisor decline to press charges. Perhaps I would ask that they agree to do some service work or something of that sort, but I just don't know that these clowns deserve to walk around with a rap sheet the rest of their lives.

I'm with the not-the-end-of-the-world crowd. Would I be pissed if I were a Pi Phi that lived in that house? You bet, but I'd probably chalk it up to idiocy and hope they got a lot of community service, a hefty fine, and a decent probation term, just to make sure they behave themselves from now on. (And would hope their fraternity would find some way to punish them as well). But I truly do not believe they are the same thing as burglars.

I understand that there is "stealing" of other chapters' property. It happened on my campus. But every time it did, it was during a party, or some event when people were welcomed into the house, and once it was realized that the item had been taken, it was returned. However, breaking and entering is a completely different ballgame, IMO. At what point does it go beyond a prank and become a serious offense?

At my school, during the time I was active, one fraternity, along with members of the baseball team, broke into another fraternity's house and beat the brothers with baseball bats while they slept. It's really not funny, and I wouldn't blame anyone for coming down hard on these guys.

And no, it doesn't matter if you're a girl breaking into a fraternity house or a guy breaking into a sorority house.

So what do you feel is an appropriate consequence?

I don't have a specific one in mind. But this whole "Boys will be boys" .. or "Greeks will be Greeks" mentality will probably, one day, lead to a more serious offense.

It usually does.

IMO it's not about Greeks or boys...more "kids will be kids". And kids do dumb shit. They should be punished, they should be sent the message that there's no excuse for it, but for things like this (where it's pretty obvious they were just being morons) it shouldn't ruin their futures.

Now I do think probation is a good idea. If they ARE the type that think they're above the law they can land back in jail, and serves them right.

Right, but the severity of the punishment should match the severity of the crime, and I don't really think that we can judge that without more context around campus norms, and/or how "self-policing" this Greek system may be. I don't think they should get off scott-free, I just don't think it's fair to make them the example if this type of thing is generally no big deal.

As you said upthread, your campus didn't call the police every time something was stolen.