Rejecting the possibility of a curfew limited to public housing communities in Annapolis, city lawmakers are instead looking into enacting a citywide curfew for youngsters to help reduce violent crime.
Joining in a chorus of criticism since Mayor Ellen O. Moyer floated the idea this week, the eight aldermen on the city council all said yesterday that targeting selected neighborhoods could be unconstitutional and would discriminate against people based on their socioeconomic status.
"The people who are committing the crimes are not only living in public housing," said Alderwoman Classie Hoyle. "The drive-by shooters don't live where they committed the crimes. So to say only 'public housing,' that would be unfair."
The debate was prompted by the killing of a 17-year-old boy Sunday night in a troubled public housing development and a shooting two days later in another high-crime neighborhood. Now council members are considering a range of times for a curfew, including one from 10 p.m. to 3 p.m. the next day that would also be designed to address truancy. Another component would offer curfew offenders access to social services.
All would be measures that could be put into place quickly in the city, which has four homicides this year, half of last year's record total. The perceived increase in crime in the state capital has drawn the attention of federal and state law enforcement, which last month launched the far-reaching "Safe Streets" initiative, perhaps to be used as a model across Maryland.
Hundreds of cities, including Baltimore, Washington and Hagerstown, have enacted juvenile curfews in the past three decades. In 2006, the National League of Cities found that more than half of the U.S. cities surveyed had implemented a daytime or nighttime curfew to deter youth violence, crime and gang activity. Most were optimistic about the results: 96 percent viewed their laws as very or somewhat effective for combating juvenile crime in their communities, with 93 percent saying curfew enforcement was a good use of police officers' time.
Leon T. Andrews, the league's director of youth development, said curfews have been established as an effective short-term solution, but they do not address the broader issue of juvenile crime.
"Cities understand that you need to stop surges of violence that you may see from time to time. But you can't arrest your way out of this problem," Andrews said. "They need to balance that immediate approach by getting key stakeholders to sit down and say, 'We need to change our social norm.'"
The youth curfew law in Baltimore, which applies to children 16 and younger, went into effect in 1976, according to Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department. It runs from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and from midnight to 6 a.m. on weekends, and can include fines of up to $300.
"The purpose of a curfew isn't to give you a reason to arrest kids, it's a tool to get kids off the street," Clifford said. However, he said it was "virtually impossible to look at a crime trend anywhere and say, 'Curfews had an impact here.'"
Alderman Fred Paone, an Anne Arundel County prosecutor for 30 years, will lead the council's feasibility study on a youth curfew, but he said he doubts that such a measure would be effective.
"Baltimore City, they have a curfew. And the last time I checked, [the curfew hasn't] put a dent in their crime rate. We don't want to do something just for the sake of doing something. We want to have a positive impact."
But interviews with residents - at least the adults - suggest that the city may be ready for a curfew.
"The teenagers - 16, 17, 18 [years old] - they should be in at 10:30, 11 at night," said Doris Johnson, a 51-year-old resident of Robinwood, where two homicides have occurred in a month. "That's when most of the action and drama is going on. That's when they want to do things they ain't got no business doing."
Predictably, the idea wasn't popular among children and teens. A teenage girl watching music videos at the computer lab in the Robinwood Community Center said any curfew should be "at least 12" midnight on the weekends.
"It's a waste of our time," said Untrell Price, 12, leaning against a chain-link fence of a basketball court in Bay Ridge. "We don't want to stay indoors."
One of Annapolis' private low-income developments implemented a curfew for adults and children three years ago, with private security hired to enforce it. Bay Ridge Gardens Community Association President Carol Dessasau said that having to impose such a rule was regrettable, but has been effective.
"People who go to work, come home and have dinner and take care of their children and go to bed, that curfew does not bother them," said Dessasau, who was preparing Good Friday dinners of chicken, fish, potato salad and string beans at the community center. "Those that have a problem with it, well, those are the house rules."
Some residents and people who frequent the community said the rules have kept it safer and quieter, though a double killing took place there in January, and two others were killed there last year.
"There's nothing out here for kids to do [late at night] but get into trouble," said Ty Johnson, 37, whose son, 16, lives in Bay Ridge.
Alderman Sam Shropshire appeared to be the most vocal critic of a youth curfew. "I don't think it's workable," he said. "What are you going to do with them once you pick them up? It takes the police officer two hours to write up a report. We just don't have the mechanism to handle this."
While acknowledging a curfew could be tough to implement because of a police staffing shortage, Alderman Ross Arnett said a curfew could enable police to prevent other crimes. A violation of the curfew could give police probable cause to search a youth for a gun.
"The first thing we want to do is really to get children out of harm's way," Arnett said. "It is well-known that youth as young as 13 are walking around armed. There's all kinds of nuances to this that could have impact."
Alderman David Cordle, who led an effort in 2002 to approve a curfew that failed, 5-3, said he plans to meet with the housing authority, clergy, the local Boys and Girls Club and police before taking a position this time.
"We're doing the same things over and over again, and perhaps now, people are seeing the light that we have to try something different," he said.
Moyer, however, hasn't abandoned the idea of a curfew in public housing. Though Eric Brown, executive director of the Annapolis Housing Authority, opposes the idea, she suggested his agency implement one there in lieu of a city-enforced curfew, adding, "A lot of murders happen there."
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