Curfew imposed on teens to combat crime in East St. Louis

Daily News Article   —   Posted on October 1, 2012

(from KMOX, CBS St. Louis) EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. – East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks says a recent crime wave, including the murders of four young people, is reason enough to impose tough new curfews and a dress code to fight teen violence.

“There is something going on in the community at this point that we’ve got to safeguard them and keep them off the streets,” Parks said Wednesday, in announcing the new rules. “There are people shooting at each other for no reason whatsoever.”

Among the new rules:

• Minors are to be off the streets at ten o’clock on both weeknights and weekend nights.
• Minors on the street during school hours will be arrested on sight.
• Police will also perform I.D. checks on street corners and conduct gun searches, and Parks says he won’t hesitate to call in the National Guard if the spike in violence continues.

Surrounded by police, Parks announced they also plan to arrest adult males and young men wearing gang colors, amounting to a city-wide dress code.

“No royal blue, no bright red to be worn by our men or our boys in this community,” Parks said. “Why is that? Those colors have long been affiliated with gang kinds of affiliations”

Asked about Constitutional concerns, and the need for probable cause, Parks says the recent wave of crime is the probable cause and justifies the extreme new measures.

“Vehicles that are moving will be stopped and searched for guns, weapons, drugs, and open alcohol and any other violations that are taking place,” Parks later told KMOX’s Mark Reardon. “People who are walking, people who are bicycling, can be stopped and searched for the same and, when it comes to state IDs, we’re going to be confirming that state IDs are in place for everyone involved.”

Parks noted the legal questions surrounding his new policies but said “most importantly, we have to do something.”

“We have desperate times, they call for desperate measures and they call for extreme measures, things that we may not have done before, to get the desired results. You cannot grow as a city if your children are being wiped out and never given an opportunity to live.”

Copyright KMOX. ©2012 KMOX CBS News local St. Louis. All Rights Reserved.  Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from CBS News. Visit the website at stlouis.cbslocal.com.

Background

Other [cities] have enacted anti-gang laws regarding clothing and symbols but not without challenges.

One of the first was created in 1993 in Harvard, a suburb of Chicago. That ordinance forbade the display of any gang insignia or clothing, but it was rejected on an appeal. Judges said the Harvard ordinance could result in the prosecution of nongang members for wearing popular jackets and hats as a style choice, unaware that the apparel had originally been adopted by gangs as their symbols.

In the aftermath, the city rewrote its ordinance to be more specific, such as forbidding the altering of certain clothing to resemble a gang symbol. 

Earlier this year, New Orleans came under scrutiny by juvenile advocates and the Louisiana ACLU for trying to enact a citywide curfew for juveniles starting at 8 p.m. Detractors said such curfews do little to deter crime and that it unfairly targeted African-American youths.

But some East St. Louis residents say such dramatic moves are warranted, especially after four young people were killed in two incidents last weekend. One of the victims was 18; the others were older. (from stltoday.com)