I often have a lot of sympathy for the Lame Stodgy Sensible Center-Left types, but - it is hard to maintain much of that sympathy when I see them posting sneering takes about how only an idiot could fail to support important ideas like (ahem) "teen curfew zones."
Are you seeing this opinion often?
Outside of elderly mall goers, that is.
Matt Yglesias in recent weeks, notably.
To be fair we have had a serious problem with organized-crime gangs of teenagers. (And sometimes preteens!)
This sounds like a shitpost, but as I understand it, DC started charging people under 16 very leniently (good!) but then various criminal organizations responded to incentives (predictable!) and started specifically recruiting 14-year-olds to do carjackings because they would basically never get in serious trouble for it.
I think that specific problem has abated somewhat, but it did require a certain amount of targeted enforcement in response. I haven't looked into details but I assume the same thing is going on with the teen curfewâthere's a specific uptick in violence and vandalism that they're trying to get under control.
(I viscerally hate the idea of curfews. I also viscerally hate the idea of jail. The latter is definitely sometimes necessary.)
I am aware that DC has an actual current crime problem related to teenagers doing terrible shit. I am in favor of the city finding effective ways to deal with that problem, some of which might be uncomfortably harsh (at least in theory). "Making public spaces inaccessible to people solely on the basis of age" should be about as acceptable a solution as "making public spaces inaccessible to people solely on the basis of race."
One would think it would be harder to recruit teenagers into organized crime if they had more options of stuff to do.
i know we like to pretend around here that civilization doesn't require repression but let's be real for a second, crime is way more fun than overwatch or pickleball. if you let people get away with it they'll do it because it's fun
Sure, some people are always going to do crime, but I don't think stealing Irish Spring from Walgreens is inherently more fun than making pottery or playing soccer, etc.
Yeah, "crime is way more fun" is... maybe true if you're graffiti tagging or shoplifting stuff for yourself. Less so if you're couriering drugs or stealing things you don't even want because some adult told you to, I imagine. And a LOT less so if you're doing carjackings, because while it's easier to persuade a teenager to do shit like that than an adult with fully formed opinions etc., most people... actually don't want to threaten anyone with a lethal weapon?
























