Time To Talk About Curfew

COMMENTARY by Stan Simpson
July 6, 2005

The carefree noise from the kids playing ball in the north Hartford schoolyard was unmistakable - summer camp.

Run by the adjacent Salvation Army's North End Worship and Community Center, the camp's 60 kids are supervised by college students on the grounds of J.C. Clark elementary school. The school is across the street from a notorious late-night convenience store fast becoming a symbol of the city's problem with wayward youth.

About a month ago, according to Hartford Deputy Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts, police had to crack down on the U-Stop on Barbour Street because it was selling drug paraphernalia. It is illegal to possess drug paraphernalia within 1,500 feet of a school. Rolling papers - popular for making marijuana blunts - were seen on the shelves Tuesday.

There is intensified community talk about establishing a curfew on late-night joints like the U-Stop. But there's not enough talk about reinforcing the existing, but rarely enforced, curfew prohibiting kids under 18 from being on the streets of Hartford after 9 p.m.

Call it the Kiddy Wagon if you have to, but if the HPD started carting off the underage late owls, the word would get around pretty quickly that the city was serious about reducing youth violence.

Just about everyone's nerves are frayed as we read about the latest mindless shootings from young men barely old enough to drive. As Roberts said, they're using "extreme force to resolve minor issues."

Shops like U-Stop may contribute to the problem of incorrigible kids making mischief after dark, but they don't cause it. Restricting the hours on convenience stores would be like limiting the use of highway bridges to reduce the homeless problem.

Want to get the kids off the streets? Have a long heart-to-heart with the so-called adults who are supposed to be raising them.

"There are a lot of parents in our community that are failing their children when it comes to responsibility and what it means to be a provider and leader and role model," said Capt. Travis B. Lock, pastor of the Salvation Army worship and community center. His building provides programs for 600 young people annually. "And so, what do our kids do? They migrate to the streets because they look for the love that they probably can't get at home, and they look for the leadership and guidance that they can't get at home."

Lock said you'd be hard pressed in most communities to find a "smoke shop" like U-Stop operating so near an elementary school and a community center.

A few weeks back, I talked to Pearl Dash, a retired state parole officer who now does community-relations work for the Henry L. Fuqua funeral home in Hartford. She understands firsthand what can happen when parents allow their children run the streets unchecked. She asked me why the city doesn't enforce its curfew on youth.

I didn't know it had one - and since 1977 at that.

"I think it would be a little tough to enforce right now because we basically don't have the personnel to do it," Deputy Chief Roberts said. "But I would like to see some of the parents and responsible adults take that initiative upon themselves. You don't need us to enforce the curfew. We need parents to be parents, to instill some discipline and rules in the house."

With this generation, we're seeing the fallout from the "babies making babies" syndrome that church and community leaders lamented years ago. Unfortunately, expecting some of these teens-turned-parents to suddenly start acting responsibly is asking a lot.

"At the end of the day, the administrators and the activists and the politicians will not change the North End," Lock said. "At the end of the day, it will be the parents finally waking up from this deep sleep that they're in and taking hold of the responsibility that they have for their families."

In the meantime, as a public service, the cops ought to fire up the Kiddy Wagon with a reminder that if parents won't enforce curfew at home - the police will.

The city could even start a promotional campaign, recasting a popular phrase from a public service announcement that aired back in the day:

"It's 9 p.m. You'd better know where your children are!"

Stan Simpson's column appears Wednesdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at ssimpson@courant.com.