For the first time since the trauma at Virginia Tech, a politician has taken a step in the right direction.

On Monday, New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos introduced a bill in the New York State Senate aimed at containing the scale of future campus carnage.  Rather than fueling either the pro-gun or the no-gun lobby, the bill calls upon the government to establish a state-operated emergency alert system for all state universities and colleges in New York.

Speaking about the legislation, Senator Skelos said that we live in the Information Age with cell phones, text messaging, mobile email, and Internet technology. Such modern technology should be used to “manage crisis situations and prevent future tragedy.”

The senator has made a levelheaded push for a campus alert system. The system would be modeled on the state’s Amber Alert system for the prevention of child abduction. The pending legislation would require the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) to develop the emergency notification system and make it accessible to both public and private institutions of higher education.

In an emergency, if an appropriate official from an educational institution were to submit an alert, the DCJS system would send text, voice, and email messages to all students, faculty, and staff recorded in its database. According to the bill, the DCJS would also help campuses integrate the alerts into alternative campus systems through the DCJS’ centralized Internet portal. Other campus public-information systems may include message boards and campus television.

Skelos said that the DCJS website is very secure and that participation in the program would be voluntary.  Students would not need to provide any information separately to any authority for this purpose.

The bill would require colleges to maintain their databases of contact information in conjunction with the DCJS. In the face of a crisis, college authorities would upload both their alert message and their school’s database of contact information to the secure DCJS webpage.

The bill also proposes barring private service providers from charging fees for the alert messages distributed through the system and states that the state should bear the costs of setting up and maintaining the proposed system.

The bill, if it becomes law, will be a more positive step than strengthening or scaling back gun laws. The authorities at Virginia Tech could not contact all of the school’s students at the same time when the crisis took place. Senator Skelos’ bill would put a tool in the hands of colleges and universities in New York that could save campus authorities from facing despair and students from losing their lives.

For more information, please visit the following websites:
www.senatordeanskelos.org/press_archive_story.asp?id=16528
www.longislandpress.com/?cp=162&show=article&a_id=11725