Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is one of those sparkling urban renewal projects that promised much and delivered little. It’s a gleaming testament to the outmoded idea that creating multi-billion dollar city projects with high-end restaurants and attractions would lead to a revival of a city’s center.
The blight in Baltimore moved from the city center to the periphery, leaving the Inner Harbor area, which was finished in 1980, as an island in a sea of crime-ridden neighborhoods. Now the Inner Harbor — like other high-end developments in the U.S. — is being inundated by Baltimore’s youth, who have little to do after the sun goes down but drink and brawl.
On Saturday night, about 200 Baltimore young people were milling about an intersection near the Inner Harbor when a huge fight broke out. As police moved in to break it up, two shots rang out. A 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were shot. This wasn’t the first weekend that minors were shot after a scuffle near the Inner Harbor, and Mayor Brandon Scott has had enough.
As a city council member, Scott had introduced a youth curfew bill that said children under the age of 14 must be inside by 9 p.m., while teens aged 14-16 must be inside by 10 p.m. on school nights and 11 p.m. on non-school nights.
“This speaks to a larger issue, that young people have easy access to these firearms and would use them indiscriminately, shooting people within 30 feet with 25 to 30 police officers who were in the area,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said. “They don’t care about the consequences and have no respect for human life or authority to pull off that brazenly cowardly act in front of police officers.”
Since the start of 2023, five children under 18 have been fatally shot and another 23 have been injured by gunfire, according to Baltimore police.
On Memorial Day, last year, 17-year-old Neal Mack was killed, and two others were injured, in a shooting at the Inner Harbor. Police charged a 15-year-old with murder.
Mayor Scott said this spring and summer there will be citywide curfews.
“I want everyone to hear me, and hear me clearly,” Mayor Scott said. “We are going back to the old days. We will be enforcing a youth curfew as we move into the latter spring and summer months.”
So does Scott really expect the kids to stay at home? These children have no respect for the law because they’ve been taught that the law is racist. And besides, curfews are not effective in stopping violence against anyone of any age.
The Marshall Project, a non-profit organization focusing on criminal justice, asserts that curfews are ineffective in curbing juvenile crime. They cited the 2016 Campbell Report, which examined more than 7,000 studies on juvenile curfews, and stated, “evidence suggests that juvenile curfews are ineffective at reducing crime and victimization. The average effect on juvenile crime during curfew hours was slightly positive — that is a slight increase in crime — and close to zero for crime during all hours. Similarly, juvenile victimization also appeared unaffected by the imposition of a curfew ordinance.”
The Marshall Project also cites a 2015 report that studied Washington, D.C.’s curfew law and its impact on gun violence. That report found a 150% increase in gunfire incidents during curfew hours, combined with a marked decrease in voluntary reporting rates because of fewer people on the streets.
Mayor Scott is frustrated but refuses to take the steps necessary to reduce the violence: enforce the damn laws. Instead of whining excuses that people aren’t obeying the law, spend one or two weekends forcing parents to come down to a police station to bail their precious child out for violating curfew. Yes, the burden will fall unfairly on black parents, and screams of racism will be heard. But the kids will get the message and maybe — just maybe — fewer bullets might be flying around on the weekend.
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