North Carolina city implements curfew for all minors

I have to keep my grumpy old man side of me in check every now and then when it comes to legislation that is directed towards the youth, who don't even get a chance to speak on this sort of legislation. But at the same time, I also know from my own experience as having been someone that was under 18 for nearly 18 years of his life, that almost all of what I was getting up to after 11pm when I was young, was probably not for the betterment of society.

src

This has happened in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and it is about 2 hours from where I live in New Bern. Almost anyone that lives in Eastern North Carolina has at one point or another referred to Fayetteville as "Fayette-Nam" at one point or another because there is a large military base there and the area is kind of generally known for not being the safest place and somewhere that nobody really goes to if they don't live there.

The city council has implemented a new city-wide curfew that is already in effect where if you are not a legal adult, you are not permitted to be in any public place between 11pm and 6am. At the moment they claim to be in an "educational" period where no fines or arrests will be made, but only warnings and I would imagine, recording of who the kids are that are found out past curfew.

The wider impact of this though, is something that is up for some level of debate as well and wouldn't have ever been a factor in my life. When this new program goes into full effect, the real punishment is going to fall on the parents of these kids who will be fined up to $500 and be charged with a class-3 misdemeanor if their child or children is found to be in violation. Furthermore, any adult that is in the company of the underage people in violation, will also be charged. In extreme cases where the violations of a child are repeated, the legal guardian could be arrested and even imprisoned if they don't get their kids under control.

Here's the thing: I guess I had a great upbringing because my parents would have never been ok with me running around the town at those times of night anyway. There would have been no reason for the police to ever get involved in my situation because I would have seriously faced the music when my parents got a hold of me. In my life, I have never really had a friendship in my youth with very many kids whose parents weren't controlling on their comings and goings. I knew a few who had very little guidance or in really tragic cases, none at all from their parents, and these kids did NOT turn out very good, one of them has been deceased for over a decade now already. The other, was in and out of the news for various criminal doings and I believe he is in jail now.

parents are a pretty damn important part of your life, don't you think? And if you are not getting some level of control and oversight by them, I think that to some degree that they SHOULD be held accountable for your actions.

I don't feel like your parents being involved in your life is a huge ask, is it? But then again I have no idea what it is like to have irresponsible parents, or a parent with a drug and alcohol problem but in the meantime I wonder, other than getting into mischief, which was always the case with me if I was out that late, what justification do teens have to be out at that time of night?

Some might look at it as Orwellian to tell kids they have to be indoors after a certain hour but seriously, 11PM? I don't think I was ever allowed out that late when I still lived with my parents. Is this really a huge ask?

This has already been implemented in NC's largest urban area, Charlotte, but I don't know how successful it has been.

On the one side of things I want kids to be able to have fun but the person in me that was a kid at one point in my life knows that if you are out of your house after 11pm, you probably aren't doing late-night studying to ace your upcoming exam.

src

I don't think that laws like this would be necessary if parents would just do their jobs and it is a shame that we have to have laws to encourage parents to do exactly that.

What do you think? The libertarian-minded person in me thinks that this is government overreach, but at the same time I also think it will be effective. If people did what they are supposed to do - in this case - be effective parents - none of this would be necessary.