As I write this Philadelphia is in its second weekend with a special curfew for teenagers. The curfew was instituted after the most recent spate of flash mob violence, and during the first weekend dozens of teenagers were arrested for violations. There were no major violent incidents, although one news report pointed out that almost all of the prior flash mobs had occurred earlier than the curfew anyway.
The curfews got national and even international news coverage, with the BBC and the Telegraph filing reports.
Not everyone is happy with the curfew. One editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer called it an “overreaction” and an unjust law because it punishes teenagers not for what they do, but for who they are. The curfew is clearly a blunt force instrument to try to prevent the large crowds that make riots possible from forming. As a temporary tool, it might be possible to justify its use, but only if we acknowledge that we are in the need for a temporary tool because we failed to establish a more lasting solution.
If I can analogize to my teaching experience – when there is such a breakdown of the classroom culture that I feel that I need to implement a blanket penalty in order to get things back on track, that might be the proper response at that moment. But the fact that I got to that moment means that I failed to create a classroom environment where the students respected each other and the classroom norms enough in the first place. The responsibility is on me to figure out what I need to do differently to engage the students and help them find the motivation to move forward. The same goes for the city and society at large. A curfew is, at best, a bandage. If we don’t change the structures that helped to create the problem, we’ll be forced to keep escalating the bandages until we’re a mummy – unable to move forward because of the restrictions we created in order to preserve us.