INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee will not recommend a proposal that would enforce parental penalties for youth curfew violations. This follows a stricter curfew that passed Indianapolis City-County Council Aug. 12.
Under Proposal 245, parents would first receive a letter on the first offense, followed by progressively more expensive fines for subsequent curfew violations. For the second offense, parents would have been subject to a $500 fine, and for the third and subsequent violations, a $1,500 fine would have been imposed.
The Indianapolis City-County Councilors couldn’t agree on giving the proposal their seal of approval. Four councilors voted to recommend the proposal, while seven voted against it.
Democratic Councilor Crista Carlino told News 8 that she voted no because the fines are too expensive for parents, even for her as a mom who works two jobs. She said it was discriminatory and predatory, particularly for parents who can’t afford it. Carlino said the fines seem like punishment for parents instead of creating a supportive network, “Sometimes I’m here late, and if I’m not back on the west side and my daughter does some dumb stuff, I may not be able to pay fine number two and sure as hell can’t pay fine number three.”
Councilor Michael-Paul Hart, who co-authored the proposal, believed the fines would hold parents accountable. When asked if he thought the fines were discriminatory or predatory, he said, “I don’t think so; it’s a fine. It’s aimed to be preventative. It’s for people to know that when you get that letter the first time, there’s an awareness that this could happen. And it’s your responsibility to be accountable to your child. If you’re determined not to do that, this is what can happen, and it can happen to anybody.”
The proposal will still go to the full council vote Sept. 8. Councilor Hart said he plans to continue conversations with the councilors and advisors on ways to address youth violence.
The youth curfew was a response to a July 4 weekend mass shooting that killed two teens. It created a new type of curfew hours outside of the standard curfew hours under Indiana law. Called a public safety curfew, the new youth curfew will be put in place “during times of heightened community safety concerns to keep minors off the streets sooner,” the City-County Council said in a press release after passing the curfew.
Under the standard curfew, teenagers between the ages of 15- and 17-years-old cannot be in public after 11 p.m., through 5 a.m., on weekdays; on weekends the curfew does not start until 1 a.m. The new public safety curfew makes curfew two hours earlier for 15- and 16-year-old teens. The public safety curfew can only be enacted with a “special ordinance” from the City-County Council.
