Chicago Mayor, Daley, Wants Earlier Curfew for Teens

For many, enforcing the newest curfew laws will be hard, but the benefits far outweigh the grumbles that might be heard.

Featured in an article by Chicago Sun-Times on January 8^th, 2008, Chicago's Mayor, Richard M. Daley has decided to pull back mandatory curfew by 30 minutes. Of course this all has to be approved by the Aldermen, but I don't doubt that it will be passed.

For those who don't know what the curfew entails it is simply that children under the age of 17 have to be off the Chicago streets by 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends. This new rollback is proposed by the Mayor to quote "stop the epidemic of youth violence." The Mayor hopes to "prevent any more occurrences of what happened in 2007, when 24 Chicago Public School students were gunned down. And, unfortunately, although the homicide rate in Chicago is at a 40-year low, too many of the 442 murder victims last year were young people."

At one point in the article, the Mayor is quoted as saying that by 8 or 9pm, kids have been out more than half of the evening and should be thinking about getting home. I wholeheartedly agree. And I also agree with the Mayor when he said that cutting back the curfew could save many lives. Kids shouldn't be out on the streets after dark. It's more dangerous for them, just as much as for adults. Especially in some of the more violent prone or gang ridden areas of the City.

Personally, if I was a parent who had to work 2^nd shift, I would breathe easier knowing that my children were safely inside well before curfew. Not all parents are home to enforce the curfew with their own children, and that's what makes it hard for some to control the things that their older children do. Especially since, the laws, when enforced, penalize the parents if the child is out past curfew and commits a crime. And as my husband pointed out, kids that cause trouble, won't care that it's going to cost their parents money. They'll just do it again.