Youth Curfews
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2011-07-20/youth-curfews
Montgomery County is considering imposing a year-round curfew on kids under 18. The measure is intended to address crime and gang-related violence, but critics say it is a misguided approach that won't work. We look at the Montgomery County proposal, and how curfews already in place in the District and Prince George's county are working.
Guests
Abigail Burman
Student, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts; Silver Spring resident
Daniel Okonkwo
Executive Director, DC Lawyers for Youth
Marc Elrich
Member, Montgomery County Council (D- At Large)
Tailor Coble
Senior, School Without Walls; Participant, WAMU's summer Youth Voices program
Tony Hausner
Founder and chair, Safe Silver Spring
Comments
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I feel that this bill is deeply unfair to parents and teens alike. It punishes the vast majority of innocent minors for the crimes of a few, and infringes on parents' rights to create their own family policies.
The county needs to recognize that families are unique. It is very possible for one family to trust their teens to be safe at night, while another family down the street refuses to leave the house once the sun goes down. The overwhelming majority of responsible parents know their own children better than the government does, and would be in a more suitable position to make the curfew decision.
Furthermore, if the police can stop minors from attending parties, watching midnight movie premiers, and photographing the night sky, how will minors view the police force? Will they think of police as helpers, or as oppressors? What effect might this have on their actions?
The country needs to first set up youth detention camps where, when caught, they are sent for a period of years and educated how to behave in our society. Then the parents need to be rounded up and chemically castrated as they are the real problem. Like roaches, they reproduce and then crawl away. Until then the Police will just constantly be chasing their tails. Society will never win as long as ultra liberal's set the rules.
I commend you for this conversation. As a parent of two teenagers who live within two blocks of downtown Silver Spring, I must say that I do not feel unsafe with them or for them when they go downtown. What does concern me is the general impression that many youth -- and parents of youth -- have. The impression being that Montgomery County would just prefer that youth not be visible at all in downtown Silver Spring. The conversations over the years about downtown not embracing a visible skate boarding experience, the unwillingness to consider keeping the turf, rather than replacing it with a much less welcoming "plaza," the lack of access for many youth groups to use the new "Civic Center" does make people wonder if the curfew is just another attempt to make youth invisible so that grownups (with presumably more disposable income) will spend more money in our developer owned downtown.
I welcome the discussions -- we need them. But the Council needs to hear that many citizens of Silver Spring feel that our government is "business friendly" at the expense of "youth friendly" and that there needs to be more balance in our planning.
While the young lady on the program is clearly poised and prepared to intelligently speak on the issue, the law already distinguishes between the rights of adults and the rights of minors in many ways. I think the County is well within its police power to impose a curfew on minors provided there are fair exceptions for emergencies, etc.
Abigail strikes me as very patronizing.
I wonder - has she watched The Wire? Does she know anyone, young and old, from the 'hood?
I've worked in East and West Baltimore, and I can tell you, those kids do NOT need more cops and more arrests. It does not accomplish anything, other than to reinforce their negative perceptions, of both the police, and themselves.
I really think she is out of touch, and talking down. I think she should consider going to a gathering or two in the underserved communities, and LISTENING, not talking.
Oh and also - I lived in LA when the gangs were very busy. Her confidence in the laws and law enforcement as the answer to what are social problems is, in my considered opinion, naive.
I really think it is an oversight to have someone like a Abigail on the panel, but not a teen from the depressed areas where a lot of kids are at loose ends and suffering.
In response to those insisting the police need a curfew in order to justify approaching teens- technically, you may be correct. If the officer does not have probably cause, they should not accost young people. However, in reality young people are very regularly subjected to police scrutiny without any legal justification. This is true not only for minors, but for college students and those of us in our early 20's as well.
As just one of many examples, when I was 20 my friend and I took a walk around his neighborhood around 9pm and stopped to sit on a nearby park bench, more than likely discussing something recently mentioned on NPR, as we tend to do. A passing police officer stopped to approach us and demand ID. Soon 2 additional squad cars pulled up to search both the area and our persons for drugs. In all, we were interrogated for 45 minutes before they left.
We had no drugs, of course, and the entire situation took place within 150 feet of my friend's front door. We weren't charged with anything, and it was very clear that the police had zero cause for the search.
My point being- Fairfax county police are more than happy to semi-illegally interrogate and search adult men at 9pm while they discuss NPR. I don't think police in Silver Spring need a curfew law to address the few bad apples that are causing problems there.
While the legal side of curfews is shady at best (history in court cases has been mixed), we should consider moral issues as well. In particular, should the government dictate family policy? Should all teens be punished for the wrongdoings of a small minority? Would it be fair to force teens, many of which are more than mature enough to go out at night, to lean on their parents until they are 18?
Also, aren't there better ways to reduce crime than driving every kid off the street? Can police run more patrols in problem areas? They already have the power to conduct searches and question people if they have reasonable suspicion.
Awesome program. Abigail, stand proud. Your repeated points about teen alienation being aggravated by this proposal hit home, as did those about the existence of other applicable laws. My 16-year-old was frustrated as he tried to engage his dad and I on his opposition to this because we kept responding that Montgomery County is trying to solve a problem and that it shouldn't make any difference to him anyway since he is never out late. Then we read the proposed law and found out that, as usual, our son was completely right. Parents, read the proposed law. One stated purpose is to put some teeth into parenting. (Maybe MC can make a law requiring children to eat their peas too.) It says that if your child gets picked up, you may have to attend parenting classes. The bottom line: what started out in reaction to a public safety problem in Silver Spring has turned into an expansive invasion of privacy and parental authority. As Abigail said, it is only going to make things worse by alienating teens, and maybe even earning good kids a police file as happened with one DC caller.
I posted a similar comment on the DC Centrist blog as related to this debate.
We are raising our children in Silver Spring, which is probably the most diverse community in Montgomery County. The residents of Silver Spring who support the curfew are not targeting racial, ethnic or class minorities. But we do want Silver Spring to be a safe place for all the residents of our community, residents that would include all those racial, ethnic and class minorities that critics wrongly claim curfew proponents are targeting.
We had a similar problem a few years ago with the Boys and Girls Club in Silver Spring. The club was organizing hip-hop parties. Nothing wrong with that. But the hip-hop posters -- displaying machine guns, nude women and gang signs -- were not being distributed to the youth of Silver Spring. They were being distributed in Prince George's County and in Washington, D.C., neighborhoods. What we experienced as a neighborhood then was an onslaught of out-of-towners who treated our homes, yards and community with disrespect. Continual police calls for stolen and damaged cars, fights and vandalism became the norm. It turned out the Boys and Girls Club had more people in their building than fire codes permitted. And they were running the hip-hop parties past the time that public transportation stopped serving the neighborhood, with noise and crowds staying late in what is really a bedroom community. When we asked for changes, we were accused of racism; sadly, the critics couldn't see that those asking for changes were black, Latino, Asian and white, that we were middle class and poor families alike, that all we were asking for was that the local Boys and Girls Club serve local families, and show respect for its neighbors. Ultimately, with pressure from the Montgomery County Council, and with the cooperation of police and fire officials, the hip-hop parties ended.
Just like then, this is not an issue of race or class discrimination. Silver Spring is a mixed community of enormous diversity. But just because our homes have faces that are of all creeds and colors doesn't mean we cannot stand together to demand safety and peace in our community. If nothing else, it shows precisely how a diverse community can stand together and demand the same respect and quality of life as our homogenous, wealthier counterparts in western Montgomery County.