By Sarah Rae

Curfew not effective without cooperation from parents: Police

Aug 10, 2016 | 2:04 PM

A city bylaw that dates back almost 20 years states children under the age of 16 must be indoors at night, but several city officials say it’s not effective without parental support.

Sgt. Carl Dinsdale of the Battlefords RCMP said the bylaw is difficult to enforce if parents aren’t around or aren’t dedicated to keeping their kids indoors.

“If we take their kids home and they’re simply going to leave by the back door again when we leave, then it just becomes a big revolving door for us and becomes quite a burden on our time,” he said. “Curfews are typically only as effective as the parents that are willing to work with people to enforce them.”

The bylaw, which was adopted in 1997, states if a child is outside between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., they will be escorted home by a peace officer. The child and their parent or guardian could each be fined $50 on the first offence and $100 on subsequent offences.

Dinsdale said apart from parent cooperation, police don’t get a lot of complaints about kids hanging out at night. Police usually respond to youth on a criminal matter and if they press charges for a criminal offence, the bylaw becomes unnecessary.

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He said it is a useful tool to have and wouldn’t rule out using it if a member felt it was appropriate though.

At the root of the problem, Dinsdale said, is parental responsibility. He said some parents might work nights and are unable to supervise their children or there are other circumstances, but if they simply don’t care to supervise their children it becomes an issue.

He said an interesting statute is in Manitoba, where parents or guardians of a child who commits a crime such as theft can be held legally responsible for the damages. He said punishing the child can take focus away from parenting skills, and educating parents may be more effective.

“To talk about a focusing back on the responsibility of the parents and developing parenting skills is, I think, where we’re starting to look more and more,” he said.

Dinsdale said curfew violations would normally also be handled more by Community Safety Officers than RCMP, because they are responsible for bylaw violations.

CSOs are active from 8 a.m. to midnight each day though — only one hour of the time is within the curfew limits. Albert Headrick, the city’s director of protective services, said officers told him if they see kids out when they shouldn’t be, they’ll tell them to go home, but don’t usually receive those kinds of complaints.

He said for children, fining isn’t generally a solution.

“We try to do the education component. It’s a lot better than fining them,” he said. ”Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae.