CHICAGO – A coalition of twenty youth justice, civil rights and legal reform organizations today sent a letter to the members of the Chicago City Council encouraging them to reject a proposal for “snap” curfews across the city when it is considered in the coming weeks. The letter notes that in response to recent, highly publicized incidents during which large groups of young people gathered in parts of the city, the Council was turning to “tired, failed ideas centered on fines and arrests.”
The message went to City Council members today was signed by: the ACLU of Illinois, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Chicago Freedom School, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Circles and Ciphers, Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Final 5 Campaign, First Defense Legal Aid, Juvenile Justice Initiative, Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, Legal Action Chicago, Liberation Library, Loevy + Loevy, Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago Law School, National Lawyers Guild Chicago, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Stick Talk and Uptown People’s Law Center.
The letter makes clear that curfews have never had an impact on crime rates or crimes against youth. It notes that the “Marshall Project documented in 2018 that a ‘voluminous body of research has cast strong doubts on the claims that juvenile curfew laws prevent victimization or reduce juvenile crime…’” The letter cites other research that results in the same or similar findings.
After two high profile events in downtown Chicago as the weather has warmed this year, one member of City Council proposed an 8:00 p.m. curfew for youth under 18-years-of-age in parts of downtown. After some discussion among City Council members and others, the proposal was reworked to allow the Chicago Police Superintendent and District Commanders to call for “snap” curfews for young people in any part of the city with as little as 30 minutes of warning.
The letter highlights the problems with this approach. It notes that the curfew proposal “doesn’t require CPD to announce the curfew by text message broadcast, by social media or traditional media, or in any other fashion that people are likely to be aware of, other than verbally informing people who are present and also putting up posters ‘if feasible.’”
The proposal does not require announcements in multiple languages or other reasonable accommodations for people with limited English proficiency. “As a result of insufficient notice, youth and their parents may be unaware of a snap curfew, and minors could be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The potential for erroneous enforcement against young people who are not intending to engage in criminal activity, but who are simply passing through a neighborhood where an instant curfew has been declared, is seriously concerning,” according to the groups.
Although it is possible that further changes will be made to the ordinance, it is expected to begin moving forward when the Public Safety Committee of the City Council meets later this week.
A full copy of the letter can be found here.