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SOME COMMUNITIES ARE TURNING TO CURFEWS TO CUT
DOWN ON VANDALISM AND CRIME. BUT TEENS SAY CURFEWS ARE UNFAIR AND WON'T
WORK.
Busted for being out at night?
No late movies. No catching the fireworks at summer
festivals. No crazy late-night dares that send slumber partiers
sprinting barefoot through their neighbourhoods. That's the world facing
young people across Canada whose towns have adopted curfews that require
teens under the age of 16 to be home after a certain hour at night. Town
officials in several provinces and territories, including New Brunswick,
Quebec and Nunavut, enacted curfews this year, hoping it will lessen
vandalism and nighttime crime. Colin Lunn says they've got to be
kidding.
“Do they honestly think that if I wanted to
spray-paint something, sticking up a curfew law would stop me?” said
Lunn, 16, of London. “Being a teenager is about being an individual and
trying your own thing. Maybe your parents have a say in that, but the
government shouldn't.” But just like the song that catapulted Will Smith
into the charts, sometimes parents just don't understand, said Kevin
Slobada, a constable with the town of Black Diamond, Alta., which three
years ago imposed a curfew for people under the age of 15. Slobada said
when officers in the town of 1,800 pick up teens after 11 p.m. and bring
them home, their parents often have no idea where they were. That's why
town curfews impose fines, going a step further than the punishment an
angry mom or dad might hand down for coming home late. In Black Diamond,
parents can be fined up to $100 if their child is out past 11 without a
good reason — which could be someone coming home from work or even on
their way back from their aunt's house, Slobada said. The curfew in
Black Diamond isn't meant to take away a teen's life, just make everyone
else's a little safer — and hold parents responsible for their kids, he
explained.
Sarah McGann, 17, said thanks to cellphones, her mom
has no trouble keeping tabs on her and that's why she thinks
city-enforced curfews are a dumb idea.
“I'm always just a phone call away,” said McGann, from
Toronto. “If my mom wants to know where I am, she can call me. And it's
her responsibility — and mine — to make sure I'm home on time.” Lisa
Boyer of the Cornwall Youth Centre in Cornwall, said curfews aren't the
solution to such problems as vandalism. Teens are getting into trouble
because they don't have anything to do at night, she said. “Telling us
what time we have to be home doesn't fix anything,” said Boyer, 17.
Cornwall's mayor said in August that he was considering a curfew after a
local civic centre was vandalized. “Instead of figuring out ways for
young people to use the civic centre, they just figure out ways to
punish all of us,” said Boyer of the proposed curfew.
“Why don't they focus on coming up with more things
for us to do?”
Forcing teens off the streets just punishes them for being teenagers,
said Pierre Cyr of Child and Youth Friendly Ottawa.
“A curfew in a municipality might take away from positive contributions
young people can offer,” said Cyr, 25. But despite sirens and bells
sounding across the country to get teens home at night, some places with
curfews don't bother enforcing them, either because of a lack of
resources or fear of legal reprisals. In St. Louis De Kent, N.B., RCMP
officers charged with tracking down wayward teens said they wouldn't
uphold the law for fear it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A curfew bylaw means “you're specifically investigating a certain age
group,” RCMP Sgt. Dave Mazerolle said after the town's curfew was
announced in August.
“That discriminates against the age group in question . . . they're not
allowed to walk on the street after a specific time.”
Tom Doyle, 16, of London, said he could imagine at
least one instance where a curfew might be a good idea.
“For a certain age, maybe I could see it for safety reasons,” Doyle
said. “Like maybe for kids under 10 years old. What could they possibly
have to do at night?”
* * *
What it really means
Curfews evolved from medieval laws requiring people to
put out their fires at a certain time of night. The origin of the word
is French for “cover your fire.”
When a bell isn't handy, try a saw
Not for cutting people in half, but for the sound the blade makes. In
the 1940s, people under 14 in Elk Point, Alta., had to be off the
streets between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. The town didn't have a bell, so it
relied on the reverberations from a circular blade saw to make a harsh
enough noise to drive people off the streets.
Sometimes adults need a curfew, too
In February 2001, a massive snowstorm hit Halifax, bringing the city to
a halt. Curious onlookers and cars thwarted clean-up efforts, so
officials ordered people off the streets between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. so
the city could clean up. Violators faced fines of $1,000.
Don't touch that rope
In Stonewall, Man., the curfew bell was also used to tell the time and
as a fire alarm. It was a popular target for Halloween jokers too —
including the fire chief. Town history says that one year the chief put
manure on the rope of the bell as a practical joke. The bell was
replaced by a siren after a fire in the 1940s.
It's 10 p.m.
In the late 1960s, an American television station began broadcasting a
public service announcement designed to strike terror into the hearts of
parents. At the start of a 10 p.m. newscast, a sombre voice would
intone: “It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” The phrase
earned a following and has since been expanded to ask about the
whereabouts of everything from pet rocks to cellphones.
Stephanie Levitz
20 September 2004
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/Today/2004/09/20/636122.html
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