Curfew in Philadelphia
Teens in Philadelphia are now expected to abide by a new 10 pm curfew implemented by the city after a string of violent crimes have propelled city officials to act.
Most people disagree on whether this curfew is even effective or not, with citizens referring to the curfew as a band-aid or a workaround to the real problems that persist in society today. With many disagreeing that the curfew has any sort of benefit, we looked into if this is true or not.
“Well, the benefits: one is that it is a tool that can be implemented to help not only the safety of our juveniles but for the safety of all.”
During 2022 Philadelphia police reported 536 curfew violations due to crimes at night, this made a lot of parents question if they should start implying or being more strict on their kids about curfew.
“So you have to just be smart and try to avoid danger. But at the same time treating a 17-year-old like you know, carrying their freedom and instead of a different way they're going in my daughter's is going to a friend's house and then coming back and forth sometimes will pick them up or not, but not always ” said Garcia
Some students at Carver say they follow curfew and others say don’t. Kids think that curfew is a good way to try and stop crimes but don't take the violence that happens in Philadelphia away because crimes just don’t happen at night.
11th grader Manny states, “ Even though I follow curfew I still don’t think it keeps Philadelphia safe because what about the crimes during the day.”
Although many students still feel unsafe in their surroundings, almost all the people we spoke to aren't even aware of a curfew, let alone follow it. Due to the very recent enforcement of the curfew after the mass shooting on South St, many kids at night don't consider this as crimes like this have become so common in Philadelphia. Because of this, kids may just disregard the curfew and still feel safe.
“Nah, I mean, it could but I think I'm pretty safe because I pay attention to my surroundings,” said Jalynn.
Once the kids get caught after 10 pm they are picked up by the police and usually issued a warning. The cops will drop the kids off at home and notify parents, if that can’t happen they will be dropped off at a community resource evening center which is open until 2 am. This isn’t always easy because cops aren’t allowed to stop anyone without probable cause, but the new mayor wants to bring back stop and frisk which can cause some unfair treatment coming from cops with bad intentions.
“Well there are a few things that can happen: they can receive a citation depending on the violation if they're committing one. Um, the parents can be notified because a lot of juveniles that come out parents don't know they're out. So there will be efforts made to contact the parents to let them know and if need be to camp parents can come and pick them up.” said Officer Wimberly.
After analyzing the curfew in Philadelphia, there are people around the city with mixed thoughts on this rule. With crime decreasing in Philly since its all-time peak in 2021, it can't be said that this is specifically due to the curfew, but more due to a conjoint effort of different organizations and the DA office trying to stop crimes. However, many citizens seem to still want to tackle the real problem, which at the end of the day, is gun violence.
“It's very upsetting for parents and fascinating for teachers. were sad for students. It's dangerous. I don't want to bring it up but spring started our own school just this week. And it was in the afternoon. My issue here is that nobody seems to address the real problem here. All right. The problem is guns and weapons in our society in this country. All right, we're trying to find all these mid-ground solutions: curfew or an incident happens and what are we going to do we're going to supply and have awareness available for all of us our psychologies and support, and that one we're not even mentioning the real problem” - Mr. Garcia.