Worried About Youth Crime, Newark Revives an 11 P.M. Curfew

When officials in Newark noted a recent increase in violent crime in their city, they were especially concerned about teenagers, both as perpetrators and as victims.

They turned to an old-fashioned idea to keep young people out of trouble: an overnight curfew that had been on the books since 1992 but had gone largely unenforced.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a recent interview. “The things we do in Newark are sometimes because we don’t have a choice. Other municipalities may not experience the problems we’re experiencing.”

The rules prohibit most unsupervised youths from venturing more than 100 yards from home between 11 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. For the past few weeks, the city has enforced the curfew on Friday and Saturday nights. After school lets out for the summer, it will be enforced on weeknights, too. The rules apply to anyone under 18.

Mayor Baraka, a Democrat who is running for governor next year, has heard growing worries from residents who have encountered young people on the streets late at night — “at times that seem outrageous to me, like 1 or 2 in the morning,” he said.

Occasionally, he said, minors out late at night have run away from home. And in some cases, he said, public safety officials believe that young people are being directed by adults in criminal enterprises. “Adults are using these minors in incidents,” he said. “We want to disrupt that.”