Police Don’t Have Time To Baby-Sit Anti-Curfew More Trouble Than It’s Worth.

People tend to lose perspective when it comes to kids and crime. A few shootings this summer has Spokane thinking it is New York City.

Yes, Spokane has experienced an increase in violent crimes over the last few years - drive-by shootings, random killings, gang-related fights. Those incidents are troubling, without a doubt, but clamping down with a blanket curfew - or even one targeting known offenders - is not the answer.

A curfew is more trouble than it’s worth. Suggesting that police need this tool to curb youth violence ignores the very real burden such a law places on law enforcement. Rounding up teens after curfew is not only labor intensive, but time intensive - especially since tracking down the parents of many of these kids will prove difficult.

A curfew turns cops into baby sitters when they should be handling real crimes, particularly at night.

And where will apprehended teens go? Spokane has already said it’s unwilling to build a new juvenile detention center. Is there any chance taxpayers will want to finance a night-time pen?

Granted, there’s a certain charm to Mayor Jack Geraghty’s proposal to set a curfew for teens with criminal records. It sounds great, but falls apart when you examine the details. Will officers know by sight those with records? Will they frequent poor neighborhoods, or places where black boys hang out?

And what offenders will be targets? Will a one-time shoplifter be subjected to the same curfew as a rapist?

The vast majority of Spokane’s teenagers are law-abiding citizens. Proof came in a study that showed less than 1 percent of the county’s under-18 population were responsible for last year’s record number of juvenile arrests.

Police agree most Spokane teens never brush against the wrong side of the law, yet a curfew assumes they’re all rotten by virtue of their age. Instead, community leaders should be looking at causes of youth violence and practical ways of stemming it.

Spokane can accomplish much of what the mayor is talking about by making a curfew a condition of probation, thus targeting that slim percentage of kids who do break the law while freeing those who don’t to drive home from work, from a friend’s or from a school dance without worry of harassment.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline “Curfew would protect our kids”

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN, EDITORIAL - From Both Sides CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board