Mayor Brandon Scott, like most of us, is clearly frustrated by the levels of gun violence in Baltimore, including Sunday night’s attack on two young people, a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old, on the 400 Block of East Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor, which sent both teens to area hospitals. The mayor has probably used the word “unacceptable” more times than one can count and would no doubt offer less polite phrasing if he thought for a moment it might lower the victim count.
To his credit, he has been willing to explore all kinds of strategies to reduce shootings, including social interventions meant to prevent them from happening in the first place. Some have proven effective, some less so — at least in the short term. And we have generally embraced the mayor’s holistic approach, with the understanding that policing is only one piece of the public safety puzzle’s solution.
The approach Mayor Scott offered Sunday night gives us pause, however. He announced his intention to go “back to the old days” and enforce through the summer youth the curfew restrictions already on the books. As Scott explained to reporters, this means it would be a violation of the city ordinance for young people ages 13 and under to be outside after 9 p.m., and for older teens up to age 17 to be out after 10 p.m. Police have made it clear that enforcement would not involve an arrest unless criminal behavior was involved, but it might involve police detaining a young person and taking him or her home or to a relative’s house or to a city-operated Youth Connection Center. A parent or guardian could get a warning for permitting such behavior or even face a $50 fine.
Connecting young people with needed services and potentially preventing future shootings is a noble goal, but study after study shows that a curfew — a loose form of house arrest — does little to save lives, or even reduce crime or victimization. Curfews may be capable of changing the exact hours or locations that crimes occur, depending on enforcement patterns, but they do not push down the overall numbers.
In 2016, the nonprofit Campbell Collaboration, an international social science research network, published a sweeping review of minor curfew programs in the United States, finding them “ineffective at reducing crime and victimization.” In fact, there was a slight increase in crime during the curfew hours, and no effect on non curfew hours. Importantly, the research showed that victimization of young people was “unaffected by the imposition of a curfew ordinance.” Many other studies have presented similar findings.
Such curfews also run the risk of further souring relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and of sending a message that teens are to be feared — especially city teens, who are often people of color, signaling that they should be seen as perpetrators and not people. Yet the number of bigger cities enforcing curfew laws is largely unchanged from a count taken in 2009, which showed that 84% of cities with 180,000 or more residents, had adopted youth curfews.
Baltimore too, has long had a curfew for young people, though enforcing it has not been a priority. Given the many issues city police deal with, it’s hard to envision how it can become one now, especially in the way Mayor Scott hopes. We fear it will instead criminalize kids, needlessly punish those who have done no wrong, be disproportionately enforced against Black and brown populations, and increase negative interactions between teens and police.
As Scott’s own Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement has frequently observed, the goal should be to improve police-community relations and trust. Interventions should be reserved for high-risk individuals.
Make no mistake, there is a place for curfews at the family level. Responsible parents and guardians should set reasonable restrictions on young people and their actions both in and outside the home. Nor would we begrudge shopping centers from requiring adult chaperones of minors, as has become increasingly common in Baltimore’s suburbs. They are private property owners. They have that right.
But the continuing fixation on city-wide curfews has all the markings of the sort of quick action policy that simply can’t deliver on its promise.
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Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.
