By Kyle Monson
Anyone who has set foot on a college campus knows that pranks are prevalent among college students. And it seems everyone has a favorite story of 'the perfect prank.'
For school and city officials, however, pranks aren''t always a laughing matter.
Paul Janda, a Provo community policing officer, said the lower campus area of Provo is where most of the pranks take place.
'I''ve personally responded to several pranks in lower campus that were thought to be real crimes but turned out to be jokes,' he said.
An incident that occurred south of campus involved a student who broke into a friend''s apartment and placed the severed head of a mule deer in the bathtub.
'It looked like a homicide scene,' Janda said.
He said the line between pranks and vandalism is crossed when intentional damage is caused.
The criminal charge for intentional damage is usually 'criminal mischief,' with fines up to $1,000, depending on the severity of the damage.
Besides criminal charges, pranksters and vandals could also face civil suits from their victims, Janda said.
'College kids are supposed to do pranks on each other; it''s part of being in college and we realize that,' Janda said. 'But every once in a while, they go a little bit too far, and they don''t realize that their actions might look criminal to somebody even though it''s just a prank.'
Though some are never caught, vandals can do considerable damage to property, which is costly and time-consuming to repair.
Recently, windows in downtown Provo were 'tagged' by graffiti artists, and the cleanup has been costly.
Craig Witham, owner of Los Hermanos on Center Street, had to replace six windows that were vandalized earlier this year. The new windows cost more than $1,000 each, and weren''t covered by Witham''s insurance.
Student pranks usually don''t go to those extremes, but school officials say they are still concerned.
Irmaleda Anderson and Jay Brown are the assistant managers of east campus housing, which is made up of Heritage Halls and Deseret Towers. They were hesitant to talk about pranks at all, fearing it would give students ideas.
Anderson said she''s seen every kind of prank imaginable.
'If you think it''s original, it''s not,' she said.
Students who lack creativity will often repeat the pranks their parents did while BYU students, Anderson said.
Brown and Anderson agreed that pranks are most often done to impress someone or show off, but Anderson added that boredom often plays a role.
The large windows in the lobbies of Heritage Hall dormitories often get broken as a result of bored students getting rowdy in the lobby.
Anderson said the windows cost between $700 and $900 to replace.
Brown said fines are specified for different types of activities. For instance, getting caught on the dorm roofs will cost $50.
Pranks are 'very aggressively investigated,' and pranksters are usually caught eventually, Brown said.
He warned of consequences of pranks that involve illegal activity.
'Where the law comes in, the University Police will take that,' Brown said. 'We have our policy that we can act on, but if it''s anything that breaks the law, the University Police will take it out of our hands, and then it becomes a court situation.'
Anderson said there have been several students who have gone to court for pranks they''ve pulled.
Lieutenant Greg Barber, public information officer for the University Police, was reluctant to talk about student pranks.
'We don''t make comments, particularly on specific pranks, simply because they tend to encourage others to engage in that kind of activity,' he said.
Barber said the main concern of BYU officials is 'the safety of the university and the safety of the students,' so they need to be tough on pranksters.
'We do caution people that if they do engage in pranks that violate the law, we do prosecute,' he said.