City Council Votes Down Curfew for Teens

The curfew issue is a topic Councilman Glen Pruitt has been trying to pass for a couple of months, proposing 17 year old teens and under to be in by 12 midnight.

“Whether its perception or reality, we have a District Attorney that says we have a crime problem in the city of Montgomery. But yet we continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. And it’s not happening. That’s why I wanted to try the curfew to see if it would be another tool in the police department’s chest to give them reason to go into the homes and find out what is going on,” said Pruitt.

However, Chief Ernest Finley told the council a curfew is not needed.

“If the data showed something crazy that we got this issue and concern during these late night hours, then I would be for it, but the data did not dictate that,” said Finley.

The council voted 4-3 against a curfew.
President Charles Jinright says there were two reasons he voted against it.

“First, the chief said he didn’t need it. Secondly, Mobile tried to put one of these in several years ago and they took it out because it didn’t work. The reality is that our chief has a great program out there to find out what is going on in the community. He does a really good job of communicating with the people in the community. He knows what’s going on and all the issues that are going on,” said Jinright.

Jinright says the challenge is finding better things for youth to do.

“Some kids under 16 years of age have been arrested 15 to 100 times. That’s scary that they have been arrested that many times. We don’t have a deterrent to crime. We get these kids, these people who have been in trouble, but we don’t change them,” said Jinright.