North Carolina city implements curfew for all minors
I have to keep my grumpy old man side of me in check every now and then when it comes to legislation that is directed towards the youth, who don't even get a chance to speak on this sort of legislation. But at the same time, I also know from my own experience as having been someone that was under 18 for nearly 18 years of his life, that almost all of what I was getting up to after 11pm when I was young, was probably not for the betterment of society.
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This has happened in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and it is about 2 hours from where I live in New Bern. Almost anyone that lives in Eastern North Carolina has at one point or another referred to Fayetteville as "Fayette-Nam" at one point or another because there is a large military base there and the area is kind of generally known for not being the safest place and somewhere that nobody really goes to if they don't live there.
The city council has implemented a new city-wide curfew that is already in effect where if you are not a legal adult, you are not permitted to be in any public place between 11pm and 6am. At the moment they claim to be in an "educational" period where no fines or arrests will be made, but only warnings and I would imagine, recording of who the kids are that are found out past curfew.
The wider impact of this though, is something that is up for some level of debate as well and wouldn't have ever been a factor in my life. When this new program goes into full effect, the real punishment is going to fall on the parents of these kids who will be fined up to $500 and be charged with a class-3 misdemeanor if their child or children is found to be in violation. Furthermore, any adult that is in the company of the underage people in violation, will also be charged. In extreme cases where the violations of a child are repeated, the legal guardian could be arrested and even imprisoned if they don't get their kids under control.
Here's the thing: I guess I had a great upbringing because my parents would have never been ok with me running around the town at those times of night anyway. There would have been no reason for the police to ever get involved in my situation because I would have seriously faced the music when my parents got a hold of me. In my life, I have never really had a friendship in my youth with very many kids whose parents weren't controlling on their comings and goings. I knew a few who had very little guidance or in really tragic cases, none at all from their parents, and these kids did NOT turn out very good, one of them has been deceased for over a decade now already. The other, was in and out of the news for various criminal doings and I believe he is in jail now.
parents are a pretty damn important part of your life, don't you think? And if you are not getting some level of control and oversight by them, I think that to some degree that they SHOULD be held accountable for your actions.
I don't feel like your parents being involved in your life is a huge ask, is it? But then again I have no idea what it is like to have irresponsible parents, or a parent with a drug and alcohol problem but in the meantime I wonder, other than getting into mischief, which was always the case with me if I was out that late, what justification do teens have to be out at that time of night?
Some might look at it as Orwellian to tell kids they have to be indoors after a certain hour but seriously, 11PM? I don't think I was ever allowed out that late when I still lived with my parents. Is this really a huge ask?
This has already been implemented in NC's largest urban area, Charlotte, but I don't know how successful it has been.
On the one side of things I want kids to be able to have fun but the person in me that was a kid at one point in my life knows that if you are out of your house after 11pm, you probably aren't doing late-night studying to ace your upcoming exam.
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I don't think that laws like this would be necessary if parents would just do their jobs and it is a shame that we have to have laws to encourage parents to do exactly that.
What do you think? The libertarian-minded person in me thinks that this is government overreach, but at the same time I also think it will be effective. If people did what they are supposed to do - in this case - be effective parents - none of this would be necessary.
I don't know. Either treat the kids like adults or hold the parents accountable. To do both seems like double jeopardy.
Also, while misbehaving kids might well be the fault of parents in many cases, I don't think that is always the case. What are you supposed to do in extreme cases? Handcuff them in their rooms? Stay up all night guarding them?
I was never much of a troublemaker and my kids haven't been either (so far anyway). But after a certain age, I can see how it might be difficult to contain them if they were determined not to be.
I think a lot of this boils down to good parenting. When I was a kid I didn't really know anyone who didn't have good parents (and both of them) but as I got into high school I knew people who had the "cool parents" and while these parents were great at letting us smoke in the house and what not, all of the kids of these parents that I knew didn't grow up to accomplish very much in their lives. Kids need discipline to succeed in most cases. I don't try to speak for everyone but that does seem to be the case in every situation that I have encountered.
I don't know what to do in this particular situation but if the locals are being terrorized by teenagers at night, doing nothing isn't the answer.
I wouldn't say that certain hours are the problem... The place where I live is too hot, and people go out to enjoy the fresh air, well-after 11 PM... The last few days, I could hear parents with small kids out in the park at 1 AM!
On the other side, I strongly agree with you regarding parents' role in children's lives... There has to be some kind of control, even after those 18 years... Maybe not control, but rather an open talk with kids... Having a 19-year-old kid, I do understand that you can't have total control over a teenager, but that confidence and some basic education is built well before those years...
And regarding fines... They are usually the last option, which doesn't solve the root cause of the issue, but it can give a positive result to those who are thinking about doing something stupid... For those who are fined, a lot of the time it's already too late...
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I remember reading something along the lines of "if a crime's only punishment is a fine, it is a tax on the poor." This kind of makes sense to me because I once knew a very wealthy guy who lived in Washington DC and he would park his car illegally on purpose downtown at night knowing he was going to get ticketed. He would just pay the fine online and this was how he parked every time he went out. Poor people wouldn't be able to do this.
Back to the point though, I agree with everything you said above. Parents need to be involved in their kids' lives, as you clearly are... kudos to you!
Most of the people I know from high school and college that grew up to be productive and successful adults had parents that were heavily involved in their lives. The ones that I knew that had very little parental involvement or especially the ones that I never even met or saw their parents, went on to do nothing.. 2 of them are in jail and one committed suicide a few years back.
I have no kids, so I can't relate to this exactly directly, but I don't think there is really any argument that a child whose parents are constantly a part of their lives with guidance, support, and discipline, is going to have more opportunities and success in life than ones who "run wild."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and politicians always appeal to our sense of right while the (un-?)intended consequences remain in the future.
I have tried to think about what else the community could do though to deal with teenage crime and general mayhem. I know Fayetteville (the city in the story) is kind of a "no go" area for the rest of us because it is seen as a crime-ridden dump. I never attempted to attribute it to teenagers though.
what do you think the community could do?
Well, actual criminals should be punished in a way that provides restitution to their victims, and everyone else should be left alone. We need churches and other voluntary organizations reaching out to these kids without being preachy.
You saying this just reminded me of a youth outreach program in my own high-school town where they would provide fun games and stuff for kids to do as well as food BUT it came along with the gospel and a sort of "forced by peer pressure" to participate in it. It would be a long time before I kind of took offense to this because it wasn't real charity, it was attempts at recruiting.
I think the problem with these kids is they are being raised in single parent households and have no respect for society in general. I think they should have corporal punishment for the kids that misbehave as they need to learn discipline for their own good or they will continue to be a burden on society.
I would be willing to bet that if we dug into the demographics that we would find that a lot of them are single-parent kids. I already said this in another response but I knew zero kids that had only one parent when I was in elementary school and everyone, rich or poor, had a pretty fantastic home life and did well in school, stayed out of trouble etc.
Now when I changed to high school I started making friends that were in single-parent households. These kids had a LOT of freedom to do whatever they wanted and they were kind of envied by the rest of us at the time and would basically go wherever they wanted. They didn't do any sports or have to go home at any particular time.
All of the kids I knew from this sort of situation grew up eventually and none of them that I stayed in touch with have amounted to very much, two of them are in prison.
Yes most don't seem to achieve very much and you start to realise how important a stable home with 2 parents plays a big role.
My mind jumped to unlikely-but-possible situations. Example: your teen wakes up during the night with a high fever and projectile vomiting. You drive your teen to the E.R. but get pulled over for being out with a teen in the middle of the night. I wonder if an exception would be made for emergencies? And what about kids who work at fast food places that are open until 10 or 11, and then they still have to get home? I have doubts about this law.
oh exceptions are made for a lot of things. Also if the teen is with an adult at the time there is no problem, especially if the adult is a relative. However, I knew older kids when I was in high school that hung out with high school kids and were legal adults. These people were up to no good.
But yeah, if there was an emergency the rule would be negated, even if the kid was on their own. If they are with a parent there is no problem.
Well, that's good.