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Curfew
"Most violent crime is committed by adults, not teens."
By Sandra Quel
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Washington, DC has a new curfew in effect tonight. In response to a recent surge of violent crime, Mayor Anthony Williams has ordered a ten pm curfew for every person 16 and younger. The mayor and the city council believe the measure will cut crime by keeping potential victims and offenders off the street. Sandra Quel is with Youth Radio in Washington.
Will this curfew actually make a difference? I mean think about it. The curfew will keep younger teens from being victims by keeping them safe indoors. But I don't think it will change who commits the crimes. Most violent crime is committed by adults, not teens. I guess it would be harder to put a curfew on adults because then the mayor would have to be inside by ten.
I'm 17 and I work at night. I can just show the police my id and my time-sheet. But a lot of kids may not have any proof that they're working. So how will the police know if they're coming from work or just on the street? At the Latin American Youth Center in D.C. where I talked to kids, most of them think the curfew is dumb.
Youth 1 (on tape)
Not all people commit crimes and they're basically saying that all youth are committing crimes by starting up a curfew.
Youth 2 (on tape)
I think it's kind of stupid, because if you're sitting outside just chilling, you aint doing nothing, aint no right for somebody to come and tell you to go in the house because you're not doing nothing wrong.
I don't think you'll ever solve the problem because all these hoods in DC and almost none of them get along. So if you've got two hoods next to each other that don't get along, there's going to be violence regardless.
SANDRA
But not all the kids had the same idea... like this boy who told me he's going to a funeral today for somebody who was killed in his neighborhood.
Youth 3 (on tape)
A lot of people are getting killed and I hope curfew be better and it might stop the killing the violence.
SANDRA
But it's really up to the police to stop crime and violence. Some people think this 10 o'clock curfew is just a way for the Mayor to look like he's addressing the crime issue without having to do much. At the end of august it will go back to 11:00 as it always is during the school year.
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