Wadley passes juvenile curfew ordinance
Following the shooting of a 17-year-old, a rash of car break-ins and a fight involving a group of juveniles, the City of Wadley voted this month to enact a curfew designed to hold parents accountable.
City Administrator Dwayne Flowers said that citizens brought the idea for the curfew to his proposal after seeing coverage of a similar ordinance recently enacted in nearby Louisville.
“I took it to our lawyer and brought it before council and then we had this shooting,” Flowers said.
The ordinance was passed without opposition and the first reading was held at the May council meeting.
“We needed a curfew because it was getting hot,” said Wadley Police Chief Paul Jordan. “We just had a bunch of teenagers out there fighting. It’s going to be one of those years when it’s going to be really busy when it comes to these teenagers. The curfew is really going to help.”
According to the ordinance, when officers catch juveniles out without a legitimate reason between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., the parents or guardians of those children, age 17 and under, can be cited. The ordinance makes it unlawful for any minor to “loiter, wander, stroll or play” in any public place if they are unsupervised by a parent or other adult over the age of 21 who has custody of that juvenile.
Exceptions are given for minors who are on an emergency errand, traveling directly home from a school-sponsored event, returning home or traveling to lawful employment, attending or traveling to or from an event involving the exercise of his or her First Amendment right to free speech or exercise of religion, just passing through the community with parental consent or if the child is next door to the home where they reside with that property owner’s permission.
If a juvenile is discovered to be out past curfew without meeting one of these exceptions, then the parents, not necessarily the child, can be charged. The progressive fine gets more severe with each violation, ranging from $250 to $1,000.
“It’s going to put the responsibility back into the household,” Jordan said. “This is going to force them to help us with these juveniles and if they don’t help, it’s going to take a hunk out of their wallet.”
On May 2 a Wadley teenager was shot on North MLK Drive near Forestview Apartments and in the preceding months the city suffered a rash of vehicle burglaries.
“We had some guns that were stolen out of these unlocked vehicles,” Jordan said. “We think that’s how some of these guns got on the street. I’ve already spoken to the public telling them to secure these guns and their vehicles and property so we don’t have these incidents. Sometimes we have no more than two officers on the street at a time and Wadley is a pretty good size place to keep everything watched at one time.”
Jordan said that he hopes that the curfew will help to open parents’ eyes as to what all their children are getting involved in.
“Don’t let us try to raise your children,” Jordan said. “Ask questions and find out what they’re doing. This could help with the gang problems we’re seeing. They want to run drugs. They want to get guns. They want to do intimidation and it’s getting out of hand. These kids, they have this code. They don’t want to tell (who is responsible for violence and shootings). They want to do their own retaliation. They want to take the law in their own hands and we’re not going to have that either.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Wadley passes juvenile curfew ordinance
