An expert on black fraternities and sororities told the Tallahassee Democrat that the jail terms meted out this week to two fraternity members at Florida A&M University were unlikely to prevent future hazing. The two were convicted in December for their roles in the brutal beating of a Kappa Alpha Psi pledge last winter, in the first court test of the state’s new anti-hazing law, and they were sentenced to two years in prison.

The fraternity expert, Walter M. Kimbrough, who is president of Philander Smith College and author of Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs, and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003), predicted that more states would follow Florida in adopting anti-hazing laws. But he said the laws needed to be strict because “most people feel like they won’t get caught.”