Philadelphia Front Page News - Philadelphia City Council may vote on permanent curfew for minors
Philadelphia City Council could vote this week on permanently imposing a 10 p.m. curfew on minors over 13.
The bill’s sponsor, Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, sees it as a public safety measure amid surging youth gun violence.
She’s been tweaking the curfew law for more than a year — first extending it to midnight for older teenagers, then scaling it back to 10 p.m. for all minors over 13, just for the summer, Now, she’s seeking to make the 10 p.m. curfew permanent.
City Hall
All the while, the number of teenage shooting victims and perpetrators has been climbing. Decades of research suggest curfews have little impact on youth violence, but Richardson said the city must try everything it can to address the problem.
“We all recognize that we are in a state of emergency with our young people, and we are utilizing just another tool in our toolbox,” she said.
One of the changes Richardson has made is the consequences for curfew violations. Minors are no longer taken to police districts but to evening resource centers and fines for parents have been eliminated.
The centers operate seven days a week from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. They are open to any teenager and offer programs, until 9 p.m., such as yoga, cooking and drone-flying.
“We know that period of time is very, very dangerous in our city,” said Deputy Human Services Commissioner Gary Williams. “We’re giving places of safety and security for young people to come to be exposed to programming.”
Williams said the centers have served about 600 kids since opening, but the vast majority come voluntarily, not from police drop-offs, indicating that either curfew violations are rare or rarely enforced. DHS is planning to open two more by the end of this month.
One witness at last week’s hearing on the bill, anti-violence activist Bilal Qayyum, suggested bringing back fines for parents.
“Something has to be done more than picking up a child and taking them to a curfew center,” he said. “We gotta hold that parent responsible.”
Richardson said she would look into some sort of accountability measure.
