CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s curfew expansion for young people received final approval in the City Council on Wednesday, making permanent a controversial restriction on how late children can stay out in Chicago.
The move to lower the curfew to 10 p.m. from 11 p.m. for all days of the week following a teen’s fatal shooting at The Bean in Millennium Park garnered a 30-19 vote. It also comes on the heels of the mayor signing an executive order with the same adjustments as well as a separate directive she imposed on banning unaccompanied minors from Millennium Park on weekend nights.
Some aldermen on the council floor balked at what they said was an overreach that impinges minors’ rights, particularly for youths of color, and could be counterproductive. Other council members said the change won’t curb violence because the existing curfew is scantly enforced and that studies suggest such curfews don’t work.
Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa evoked the photos of the young victims from Tuesday’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school while arguing the council must do everything in its power to prevent more children killed — a goal he said cannot coexist with a juvenile curfew.
”It’s clear: Expanding teen curfew leads to an increase in gun violence,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “A vote for this ordinance, the evidence shows, is a vote to increase gun violence. ... We need the gun violence to stop.”
Alderwoman Emma Mitts disagreed. “Curfew is not going to kill the kids,” she said, adding that the measure is “not perfect, but it’s a start.”
Mitts echoed others who favored the move, saying they felt it was important to take even a small step and also to send a message to teens and their parents.
Before the vote, Lightfoot sought to make the case that a shift in curfew hours bolsters public safety as the summer season and its usual increase in violence approaches. She also dismissed aldermanic criticism of the policy as “mystifying.”
”A curfew has been on the books in the city of Chicago since 1992 — 1992,” Lightfoot repeated. “We’re tweaking what already exists, changing and making it uniform across every single day. ... It’s not Armageddon and, with due respect, it’s offensive and wrong and demonstrably false to say these modest changes are going to increase gun violence.”
Immediately after the passage of the curfew changes, the ACLU of Illinois released a statement condemning the policy and said it will “closely monitor” its implementation and “consider all legal options.”
”The curfew sends a terrible message that young people, and particularly youth of color, are unworthy of being out in public,” said ACLU senior attorney Alexandra Block.
The mayor, who is expected to announce her reelection campaign in the coming weeks, has faced a groundswell of questions over how to address crime following a spate of high-profile violence downtown, including the May 14 fatal shooting of 16-year-old Seandell Holliday near The Bean, allegedly by a 17-year-old.
Lightfoot responded to that spurt of gun violence by issuing an executive order creating a 10 p.m. curfew for minors all days of the week and banning unaccompanied minors from entering Millennium Park after 6 p.m. Thursday to Sunday. Later that week, she introduced the 10 p.m. curfew ordinance amendment that aldermen approved Wednesday.
During last week’s committee hearing on the curfew amendment, Chicago police Lt. Michael Kapustianyk said as of that week, there have been 98 curfew violations documented by Chicago police this year. In 2020, that number was 635. In 2019, the number was 1,804, and in 2018 the number of curfew violations issued was 2,453.
Among the research cited by progressive council members who were against the amendment was a review published in 2016 by the Campbell Collaboration nonprofit that found a lack of evidence that juvenile curfews truly stem crime.
In fact, a working paper published in 2017 suggests an earlier curfew for children in Washington, D.C., led to an increase in gunfire detected by the city’s ShotSpotter system.
The curfew law, which was passed in 1992, had imposed a 10 p.m. cutoff on weekdays and an 11 p.m. curfew on weekends, both of which apply to those ages 12 to 16. Lightfoot’s ordinance amendment moves up the curfew at 10 p.m. across the board and has it include 17-year-olds as well.
For children under 12, the curfew remains 8:30 p.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
So far this year, shootings have been slightly down compared to this point in 2021, but experts have warned it’s too soon to tell whether Chicago’s crime spike that began in 2020 is waning. And the mayor has said the city must act swiftly to address what she has said in her executive order was an “emergency” of an increase in “crimes committed by minors,” according to the decree’s text.
In defending the additional curfew hours for minors, Lightfoot has cited Holliday’s death as well as a mass shooting last week near a McDonald’s on the Near North Side, though nearly all of the victims whose ages were released by authorities are adults. Meanwhile, over the weekend a 22-year-old South Side man was shot in Millennium Park by a security guard, at whom he allegedly pointed a gun.
City Council’s discussion on crime is due to continue later Wednesday afternoon, when aldermen have scheduled a special hearing over summer safety featuring Chicago police Superintendent David Brown, Chicago Park District head Rosa Escareno and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.
Also Wednesday, Southwest Side Alderman Matt O’Shea introduced a law providing cops with incentives to keep working for the department. The move comes as police staffing continues shrinking.
New and first-time homebuyers would receive $10,000 in down payment assistance that would be offered interest free, according to the proposal. The city would also pay out a $10,000 signing bonus to veteran cops who transfer into Chicago.
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