Chicago’s curfew proposal wouldn’t have meant anything to me. With a police officer for a father and an expert, though not professional, sleuth as a mother, my time outside the home was monitored, regulated, and restricted up until the day I left for college.

Even without the presence of cell phones, GPS devices, and other handy technological tools, my parents always knew where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing. I felt it was ruining my social life at the time, but their strict oversight no doubt kept me out of trouble and poised for greater success in life.

That’s the kind of the thinking behind Mayor Richard Daley’s plan to rollback the curfew for kids under 17, by a half-hour to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends. “If I save one child, it’s all worth the criticism,” Daley said at a news conference at a South Side Chicago high school on Tuesday.

Though the Windy City’s homicide rate was down in 2007, a significant portion of the victims were youth -- 24 of them Chicago Public School students gunned down after dark.
Chicago isn’t the only city to use curfews as a means to address youth violence. In a 1997 survey (yes, it’s old but it’s the latest study conducted), 276 of 347 responding cities reported having curfews, with about 90 percent of them saying the enforcement helps keep the streets safer. About half said youth crime had dropped since the institution of a curfew.

In Chicago, the curfew restrictions have been in place for quite some time and have expanded to include parents, who could face fines if their child is out past the prescribed time. For my parents, it was never an issue. The consequences for being late in my home were higher than any Daley could dole out. But then, I guess, so were the rewards.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor