At a glance, the Justice and Development of Leadership club may look like a group of college students playing cops and robbers, but the student-led organization is designed to do more than entertain.
It offers students at the University of North Georgia an opportunity to participate in law enforcement simulations, meet professional law enforcement officers and build practical teamwork skills.
Anirudh Ajit, a sophomore criminal justice major and UNG campus safety ambassador founded JDL last semester. He says the club was inspired by his experience as a public safety cadet in the Suwanee Police Department Explorer Program.
“That’s basically what I’m trying to bring here to UNG,” he says. “I kind of wanted it to be a bit of a trailblazer club, something that’s new and different.”
The club has 11 members across the Dahlonega and Gainesville campuses. They meet every other Friday to role-play as law enforcement officers in a variety of simulated situations.
From medical emergencies to vehicle stops, suspicious objects, uncooperative subjects, forensic cases and false alarms, Ajit says scenarios are chosen at random before each meeting, and participants are assigned a role.
During the meetings, he acts as a 911 dispatcher to guide teams through each exercise, sometimes providing preliminary information, but often leaving space for surprises.
“That kind of keeps them on their toes,” he explains. “It’s kind of just up to them to figure it out as they go.”
While JDL is structured around law enforcement preparation, Ajit says the club is open to students of all majors, describing the focus on criminal justice as a “means to an end.”
“This is something that’s great for everyone, because it’s more than just law enforcement. What I’m really trying to teach here is leadership,” he says.
Ajit also hopes the club will help improve UNG’s university score on Rate My Professors, where students frequently comment on a lack of engaging campus organizations.
Students on the site give UNG Dahlonega and Gainesville an average rating between 3.3 to 3.6 out of five stars in the clubs category, with some describing campus organizations as “nonexistent” or “tiny.”
Emily Hwang, a junior psychology major and vice president of JDL, says as a former criminal justice major, she struggled to find students with similar interests on the Gainesville campus.
“It’s pretty hard to talk to other people about minoring or majoring in criminal justice here [on the Gainesville campus], because there’s just the intro class,” she says. “So it’s nice to see other people’s perspectives [through JDL].”
To join the JDL GroupMe, click here.
