Supporters acknowledge that curfews are no panacea for juvenile crime. But they say forcing kids off the streets at night might prevent some tragedies like the one in Oak Cliff. “We are moving from reactive to pro-active to address the problem,” says Dallas City Councilman Jim Buerger. Others argue that such laws can help bolster discipline in households where parents are struggling to control their kids. “The parents see it as something that reinforces what they are trying to teach their children at home,” says Glenda Lock, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta police, which began enforcing a new curfew last November. Officials say the ban has been a success but have little hard evidence to support the claim: the city doesn’t break crime statistics out by age. Still, aggravated assaults for the first five months of 1991 are down 14 percent from the same period last year.
Skeptics say the curfews are meaningless. “The reality is that kids who are doing drugs, committing murders, rapes and burglaries (aren’t) going to look at their watches and say, ‘Gee, guys, it’s 10 o’clock’,” says Dallas City Councilman Glenn Box. Critics also question whether the curfews are constitutional: the Dallas ACLU has already filed suit and a similar challenge is expected in Atlanta. Attorneys argue that the Dallas ordinance flies in the face of Supreme Court rulings upholding the right to “hang out” and will force teens to carry identification-also unconstitutional. The law’s vague language and numerous exceptions (kids can break curfew if they have a personal emergency or can prove they are exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech or assembly) could lead to selective enforcement, say civil libertarians. “Ultimately, curfew laws don’t make us more safe, but they make us less free,” says Joe Cook, executive director of the Dallas ACLU.
Curfews are useful for short-term protection during civil emergencies such as riots or catastrophic storms. But, some law-enforcement experts say, while blanket curfews aimed at teens may make a nervous public feel that the streets are safer, they are not a sensible use of police resources. In many cases, enforcing such ordinances soon gives way to more pressing priorities. “It’s a quick way for lawmakers to demonstrate that they are doing something about the problem,” says Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a police research group. “There is a flurry at the beginning, then [the ordinances] fall into the dust of the law manual.”
At Atlanta’s East Lake Meadows housing project, a magnet for teen violence, residents complain that enforcement of the ban has already sagged. “Some [kids] as young as 7 or 8 are still out in the streets until 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning,” says Eva Davis, president of the tenants association. “They are out there breaking bottles, shooting firecrackers, making all kinds of noise.” Teens themselves are skeptical. “I don’t think it’s going to reduce crime. It’s going to make kids run from the cops more,” says 15-year-old Brooke Marlowe of north Dallas. And in violent enclaves such as East Lake Meadows, many teens say they don’t require a new city ordinance to remind them of the risks they run. “I don’t need anyone to tell me to come in the house at night,” says 16-year-old Yashica Mack. “I’m scared that one of those bullets might hit me.”
