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Situations : Talking Points Against Daytime Curfews
Talking Points Against Daytime Curfews
THE IMPACT ON HOME SCHOOL FREEDOM
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Home school students told can’t be
in library during school hours.
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Home school students walking around
neighborhood for physical education at noon taken home and told
not to be in public.
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Home school student on emergency
trip to pharmacy ticketed.
ARE THEY LEGAL?
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1995 - Texas legislature passes a
statute allowing Texas cities to adopt daytime curfews to
deal with crime related to truants .
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Must make allowances for a juvenile
to be in public during these times: permission from school or
parents; an emergency; presence of a parent.
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Some even have home school defenses .
THE ENFORCEMENT PROBLEM
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Defenses are not the same as
exemptions.
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Police support the curfew as a tool
for “zero tolerance” to deal with crime or truancy.
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This often leads to unequal
enforcement in spite of “defenses.”
SAFETY VS TRUANCY
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The legislature allowed these
curfews on the basis of safety concerns.
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Police can rarely provide data to
show a correlation between truancy and crime statistics.
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In 2007 school districts began to
seek daytime curfews to help with truancy enforcement.
DUE PROCESS
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Truancy statutes have due process to
require warnings and several unexcused absences prior to
prosecution and fines.
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Daytime curfews circumvent this by
allowing for prosecutions and fines for truancy by the city on
any occasion.
CURFEWS DISCRIMINATE AND DON’T WORK
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Studies have shown that curfews do
not reduce crime.
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In Cincinnati truancy increased
after the adoption of daytime curfew.
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Daytime curfews are often enforced
in minority areas more than others.
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In Houston, police often cite
students who are late to school.
FIGHTING DAYTIME CURFEWS
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Monitor County and City Officials
regarding Daytime Curfews.
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Challenge them to present statistics
on crime related to truancy.
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Point out problems with enforcement
and give real examples.
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Challenge the need for the curfew by
pointing out HB 776 in 2007 session.
NO LEGAL NEED
LAW ALLOWS POLICE TO ENFORCE TRUANCY
STATUTE
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HB 776 adds the child's school to
the list of places where police can drop off juveniles they take
into custody.
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Prior to this Family Code only
authorized officers to release juveniles to: parents or
guardians; detention facility; office designated by the county's
juvenile board; or to a medical facility.
CURRENT LAW INGENIOUS
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The legislation is ingenious because
it allows police to take students back to school but avoids
criminalizing the students.
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"The concept was, why can't you just
take them back to the place where they obviously need to go?" he
said. "School is the place where their parents think they are
and the place where taxpayers are paying for them to be.“
(Charley Wilson, Legislative Director, Combined Law Enforcement
Associations of Texas)
IF IT AIN’T BROKE…
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HB 223 & HB 776 removes the
rationale that a curfew is needed to give police authority to
enforce the truancy statutes.
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"If somebody wants to fight over it,
it would be strange," he said. "Conservatives love this because
this gets back to the old thing of putting kids back in school.
Liberals love this law because it stops the criminalization…”
CLEAT
STRATEGY FOR DEFEAT OF DAYTIME CURFEWS
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This is a Political battle.
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Constituent contacts to city
councilmen: calls, e-mails and letters.
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Expand Coalition to include
businesses and minorities who will also be impacted.
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Get the media involved and make the
case to them in newspaper and TV stories.
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Pass information on to others and
get them to take action as well.
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