Source: NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Nearly 93 percent of children stopped for curfew violations in New Orleans between 2009 and 2012 were black, reports Ramon Antonia Vargas at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.
Of all the minors caught for curfew violations those four years, 5,099 of them were black boys, and 2,098 were black girls. In that same time frame, NOPD arrested 525 white children — 313 boys and 212 girls — or 6.8 percent of the total.
The 26 remaining curfew stops involved 19 Hispanic boys and seven Hispanic girls – about 0.4 percent of the total.
Of New Orleans’ 361,000 residents, 60.2 percent are African-American; 33 percent are white; 5.2 percent are Hispanic; 2.9 percent are Asian; and the rest are of other races, according to the Census Bureau.
The New Orleans Police Department initially told the paper that they do not collect demographics on children arrested for violating the city’s curfew, but they later called that claim a “miscommunication“.
Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas insists his officers are not racially profiling and argues that it’s really all about crime patterns. He even went so far as to blame parents.
“Families that don’t care enough about their kids to say, ‘It’s midnight! You’re not going to start your day!’ — that’s the problem,” Serpas said.
The law stipulates, with few exceptions, that children ages 16 and under have to be home no later than 8 p.m. (9 p.m. in the summer) Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, unless they are accompanied by a guardian. No matter the day of the week, children are not allowed to be at the French Quarter, a district lined with bars and strip clubs, past 8 p.m.
Police maintain that the sole purpose of the curfew is to keep the city’s children safe. But over a third of curfew arrests are made in and around the French Quarter rather than areas with far higher crime rates. Critics say this is proof the curfew is meant to protect the tourism industry rather than children.
The law also states that parents whose children violate curfew can be punished with fines as high as $500 or up to 60 hours of community service.
White Boys Get Off Easy, Everyone Else Gets Locked Up
As for the children caught violating curfew, police can either take them home or send them to the Orleans Parish Juvenile Curfew Center (essentially a kid jail) where they’re locked up until a parent picks them up.
This decision appears to be heavily influenced by race as well: Police locked up 48.6 percent of black boys and 47.4 percent of Hispanic boys stopped for violating curfew compared to 39.6 percent of detained white boys. In fact, white boys were the least likely to be sent to the Curfew Center (got privilege?) even when compared with their female counterparts, including white girls. “White, black and Hispanic girls went to the curfew center at rates of 47.3, 45.7 and 42.9 percent, respectively,” writes Vargas.
Source: NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Curfew Doesn’t Reduce Crime
Vargas points out that there is no evidence to suggest the curfew makes children safer:
A 2000 study of New Orleans’ curfew ordinance concluded the city’s law was ineffective because it didn’t cover older adolescents and young adults, who often commit crimes; and it excluded the hours right after the end of the school day, when minors are most likely to break the law.
The police’s focus on curfew arrests has not been shown to affect the rate at which juveniles are dying as a result of violence, nor has it had much of an effect on how often youths are being prosecuted for delinquency.
Given the high racial disparity, I don’t see how the curfew law is all that different from Jim Crow era laws that mandated black people couldn’t leave their homes past a certain time.
So, instead of wasting resources locking up children for being outside their homes when the sun goes down, perhaps the city of New Orleans (along with Philadelphia, which instituted a curfew in 2011) should try addressing the root causes of the crime they’re supposedly trying to curb.
Through out the history of the Nation, “Equal justice under the law” NEVER meant all “CITIZENS” are equal.
Some are more “Equal” than the others or “Justice & the Law” applies to some but not to all citizens.
So much for “civilized society”,, THERE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY STAY THE SAME.
Welcome to the real world !!!
March 29, 2013 at 5:23 pmNew Orleans Murder rate is worse than Chicago.
March 30, 2013 at 1:03 amhaha are you kidding me!!?? All this because a few racist cops pulled over black kids and gave them a stupid curfew violation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
New Orleans is the murder capital of country!!! Why not talk about this!! Much worse than a stupid curfew violation. Black men killing our own is treacherous. Black men just walking up to other people and spraying little girls and boys while there sitting on the porch for no good reason. THAT’S WHAT WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT instead of fighting for “curfew patrol justice”.. WHAT???!!
I’m telling you the truth!!!! I’m not afraid of a white person, I’m afraid of getting killed of another black person. White people are killing black people. They don’t need us to. Were killing each other. You don’t even need to commit a crime to get killed by a black person. A black man will walk into a park and just kill little girls and boys. Remember the poor woman who’s little baby got shot by another BLACK man while she was getting robbed.
TALK ABOUT THAT!!!!! THAT’S THE REAL PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED. But NOOOOOOOOOOO you want to talk about “CURFEW JUSTICE”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why can’t we talk about BLACK entertainers and athletes who make it out only to set the WORST example for black kids. HAHAH you know what we say….” well he/she got a lot of money fast so it was hard to handle”. Straight bullshit, letting them off the hook.
Just like we have a “rape culture” we got a “blame the whitey for EVERYTHING” culture
Real quick to riot and call out cops when they killed a kid with a gun in NY but where were the riots about the 800 people, mostly black kids who were killed by other black kids in New Orleans!!!!!!!!!! Why didn’t we have the same reaction???!!! You know why!! Because people like you are telling these people to “Wait until we get CURFEW JUSTICE”.
SPEAK THE TRUTH!!!!!! WE GOT A LOT OF SHIT WE NEED TO HANDLE IN HOUSE WAYYYYYYYY BEFORE WE ARGUE ABOUT &^%$#@@ CURFEW JUSTICE!! what a joke.
March 30, 2013 at 2:05 amThe focus of Rania’s post is indeed on curfews in New Orleans, but if you look closely, you’ll find that her argument is “instead of wasting resources locking up children for being outside their homes when the sun goes down, perhaps the city of New Orleans should try addressing the root causes of the crime they’re supposedly trying to curb.” I believe she and you both are advocating for social justice.
April 13, 2013 at 3:08 pm[…] a definite counteract to the myth that racism in America is a thing of the past. For example, in New Orleans, Louisiana, numbers came back from a report documenting that 93% of black youth have been arrested for […]
April 5, 2013 at 10:41 pm[…] exists and blacks are still the number one victims of this horrible system. For example, in New Orleans, one report documented that 93% of black youth have been arrested for breaking curfew in the city. […]
April 7, 2013 at 10:22 amOlympia has a similar law, but targets the homeless since there are few blacks living here. The City Council passed an ordinance criminalizing an entire underclass by making ‘camping’ and ‘camping paraphernalia’ a crime within the City limits on public property. Possession of a blanket, sleeping bag, tent, tarp, pillow, utensils, even cardboard is now a criminal offense. These laws are nothing less than municipal apartheid ordinances. They smack of Jim Crow and the Nuremberg laws. South Africa’s blacks, under apartheid, were arrested if they hadn’t cleared out of the cities by dusk.
What was the point of beating the Nazis only to become just like them?
-amicuscuria.com/wordpress-
May 10, 2013 at 6:55 am