‘A curfew doesn’t really help much’: Community pushes back on proposed curfew

By Kelly Swoope

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    BALTIMORE (WMAR) — “At the end of the day a curfew doesn’t really help much, because there’s killing going on throughout the day, all day, every day,” Darrien Livingston, former squeegee worker said.

Livingston would know. The 17-year-old has grown up in the streets of Baltimore.

“I got involved in squeegeeing, it was just to put money in my pocket for real. Growing up it was like I didn’t really have stuff. I just wanted my own stuff,” Livingston said.

Now, recently released from jail and no longer allowed to squeegee, he’s working to find a legitimate lifestyle and laying a foundation for his future.

“They teach us a lot of stuff. They teach us social skills. They teach us as far as what we need to find jobs, it’s a good opportunity,” Livingston explained.

It’s the Heart Smiles Maryland’s Squeegee to Success program.

“We put them into positions where they can do the research now and they can actually learn about stuff that pertains toward business and professionalism,” Lamar Hill, Program Director of Heart Smiles Maryland, said.

Opportunities, not obstacles according to Professor Natasha C. Pratt-Harris.

The Criminologist from Morgan State University sees programs like this as a longer-term solution to Baltimore’s youth violence problem versus the proposed curfew.

“The quick way to respond is to implement a curfew and curfews have not been effective at reducing crime,” Pratt-Harris said. “Because of the curfew, they are given the green light to approach that young person and all of things that come into play when it comes into contact with law enforcement.”

While she’s convinced a curfew will not impact the crime, Pratt-Harris says sadly the crime stats we’re seeing now aren’t that unfamiliar.

The professor was born and raised in Baltimore. She says the numbers were just as high, if not higher in the 90’s.

In that decade, the murders were in the 300’s and it didn’t drop below 200 until 2011.

“It was a given that a young person’s sneakers would be stolen, and he or she would be shot or killed for the sneakers. Back in my day it was puff jackets, now we have social media that will pump out all the news, all those acts of violence and we have access to the video,” Pratt-Harris explained.

Pratt-Harris says there’s a common thread to the crime and violence here and in other urban cities.

“Crime data, increase in poverty issues crime goes up, policies you’ll see dips in crime,” Pratt-Harris added. “The truth is we’ve been living and thriving in waves of violence across the country and definitely in Baltimore.”

While the stats and problems are clear, the path to finding a solution is cloudy. Instead of curfews, Pratt-Harris says increase community policing, beef up neighborhood patrols and community involvement.

Programs like Squeegee to Success are pointing Livingtson in the right direction.

“I want to get my high school diploma. I want to get a trade in electrical engineering, and I also want do music. I feel as though if I keep focusing, if I keep going to school, doing what I need to do, I can reach that goal that I want in the end,” Livingston said.

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