Posted on 03/26/2009 10:50:14 AM PDT by Big_Monkey
DALLAS -- This city is considering joining a rising number of others across the country that are imposing criminal penalties on kids who skip school to hang out at the mall or on local street corners.
Such juvenile daytime curfews to combat truancy and crime are drawing protests from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and from the parents of homeschooled children who, along with some parents of public-school students, object on grounds that such laws in effect criminalize otherwise law-abiding kids who may have good reasons for not being in school.
Daytime-curfew laws have long been popular in a handful of states, including California and Ohio, and opponents say that they are becoming increasingly common. Benicia, Calif., near San Francisco, began enforcing a curfew in January, and Kennesaw, Ga., north of Atlanta, enacted one earlier this month. Bedford, Texas, near Fort Worth, adopted a curfew last year, and the city council in Philadelphia is set to vote on one Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Teen crime is committed by the usual suspects - it's the same kids over and over again. There's a revolving door on our juvenile justice system that needs correction; not more laws that won't be enforced and burdensome regulation for the innocent.
Compulsory attendance laws are just as bad as daytime curfew laws. Children are not criminals, there is no reason for the government to have them confined for certain hours of the day.
Correction: not all children are criminals.
Yup. We'll just keep pretending that all kids are to blame...a profile of the offenders would include a protected group.
I have always thought that all curfew laws, except in the most extreme and temporary of circumstances, violated the Constitution's guarantee of Due Process.
How can the state confine or restrict a citizen's movement with no Due Process? Children are citizens of this country and therefor should enjoy their country's Constitutional protections.
If the only message schools gave a kid was “Praise Obama, Love Obama, Obey Obama”, I’d be a truant too.
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