Could a curfew reduce Rochester’s
homicide rate, especially among youth?
It depends on how it’s implemented, says Rochester Institute
of Technology criminal justice professor John Klofas. It probably won’t work,
he says, if violators are cuffed and jailed. But, he says, if the city can
create a comprehensive social-service-oriented program, a curfew can become a
way of identifying and providing services to at-risk children and their
families.
The idea of a curfew has been gaining prominence locally. In
his State of the City address last month, Mayor Robert Duffy said he would
“seriously consider” imposing a summer curfew as early as this June. And at a
press conference late last month, new Police Chief David Moore said a summer
curfew could serve as a pilot program for something more long-term.
Moore, who helped implement a similar program in Colorado
Springs more than a decade ago, says such trials do
work. For example, police in Colorado
initially issued warnings instead of tickets to help youth adjust to the new
law.
Spearheading the movement is City Councilmember Adam
McFadden, who first raised the issue several months ago. After a recent visit
to Minneapolis to observe that
city’s 11-year-old program, McFadden says he is convinced that Rochester
should replicate it. “Not only do I think it will curb violence, but it’s going
to be a tool that we can use to deliver services to a family,” he says.
While comparing Rochester
and Minneapolis is a bit of a
stretch — Minneapolis is larger,
whiter, and wealthier than Rochester
— Moore says the two cities have
at least one similarity: They both suffer from high gang and drug-related
violence.
Minneapolis
officials imposed a curfew in response to the city’s high murder rate in the
mid 1990s, McFadden says. Minneapolis
takes young offenders not to an area lockup but to a 24-hour curfew and truancy
center, he says.
Run by the Minneapolis Urban League, the center is the
receiving zone for youths that cops pick up, says its executive director, Kevin
Carlisle. That’s where they’re searched, screened, and sent home. That’s where
they receive their fine ($25 for a first offense or community service; $50 for
a second), and where parents call when they can’t find their young people.
Carlisle ballparks offenders’
recidivism rate at around 5 percent. Moore
adds that in Colorado fines were
levied against parents or caregivers, not children.
One of the greatest challenges though, warns Klofas, is the
resources required to implement a curfew of this nature. “A lot of cities have
tried and dropped it in time because of expenses associated with it,” he says,
noting that Rochester does not
currently have a 24-hour service center.
The city would also have to hire additional police staff —
to patrol the streets and to receive youth at the center. Creating and
enforcing a curfew is a huge commitment, Klofas says: “It’s really rethinking a
service model. It’s not just sort of passing legislation to keep kids off the
streets at a certain hour.”
McFadden wants Rochester
to replicate the Minneapolis model,
which receives funding from three sources: the city, county, and city school
district. At the onset, McFadden says, each agency paid $100,000 — a figure
he insists is feasible for Rochester.
“We spend $100,000 on bullshit all the time in terms of government. If we can’t
find $100,000 for our kids, then that’s a serious problem,” he says.
Aside from monetary concerns, some worry that a curfew will
target poor, minority children. Even with equal enforcement in the city’s
predominantly white and black areas, “It’s inevitable that the kids who are
likely to be most affected by this are going to be minority kids,” says Klofas.
That imbalance arises, he says, from a “whole variety of
lifestyle issues.” For example, children in Rochester’s
poorer areas are likely to live in more crowded households, lack air
conditioning, and have fewer indoor recreation options.
But McFadden stresses that a curfew isn’t a hidden way of
getting minority children into the prison system. It’s about intervention,
about getting teenagers off the streets before it’s too late, he says: “Let’s
face it. It’s minority kids that are dying.”
Even if the city moves ahead with a curfew, people should
not expect a quick fix to Rochester’s
crime problem, Klofas says. “The toughest kids are not really going to be
affected by curfews,” he says. “It’s those other sort of middle-range kids
whose behaviors you have a shot at changing.”
And, he adds, it can take up to a full generation to truly
measure the impact of a curfew. Measures for success include not just a drop in
violent crime, but city children’s academic and social achievement.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2006.
