Dallas Daytime Curfew

[mommyban]

Did they explain why they cannot seem to enforce the Truancy Laws??

[pepper131]

No, they never did explain that.

Nor could they explain why the majority of crimes committed during the day are done by adult males - yet they want a daytime curfew for kids and not adult males - when the "real" reason for the daytime curfew was for curbing daytime crime.

[MurphyPl1]

And the number of crimes committed by those who could have been arrested under the truancy laws was around 200 for 12 months out of thousands also during the same hours not by juveniles.

[mommyban]

Okay, so clearly another agenda is going on here. Wonder what it is. My thoughts start to go along the lines of it is easier to take freedoms away from those who aren't used to having them. For instance, if a person grows up believing that the government/school can tell them when and where to be, then some will never think that they have the right to come and go as they please.

I have been reading some children's books with my daughter by Ralph Moody. He lived during the early 1900's and the books are about his life. Some are set in NE, MA, TX, CO, ME. His father dies when he is young, about 9 or 10. He then starts to work to help support his mother and siblings. Often, he does not go to school because he can earn much needed money. At one point when he was about 12 or 13, the family moved from CO where he had been working on a cattle and horse ranch to MA. He goes looking for work immediately and is hired by a general store keeper. Their conversation about his availability reminds us all that compulsory education is relatively new, in some states less than 100 years old. He says he can come anytime. The store keepers tell him that though he may be used to other ways in CO, in MA he'd get arrested for truancy. He has to attend school.

There is an interesting article in Wikipedia about compulsory education. The one thing I was looking for though, is when it started. Compulsory education was pushed in the United States during the Progressive Era, the early 20th Century. Prior to that, schooling was a choice. Interestingly enough, compulsory education was started to keep children out of the work place, and raise wages that adults could then earn. (If a child would do it for less, why pay an adult more?)

Apparently, truancy has been a longstanding problem in many areas. Here is a link to a very interesting article about it, which also highlights a successful anti-truancy campaign in Arizona in the late 1990's. Perhaps their example would be a better place to start:

Truancy: Encyclopedia of Everyday Law

What follows is the portion about Arizona's policy, which is now financially supported by the Dept of Justice...hmm...wonder if that means that funds are available to implement it in other states. Worth looking into.

Arizona was the first state in the United States to implement and enforce a get-tough approach to truancy laws. Research on truancy in Arizona began in the early 1990s. Pima County had the highest truancy rate in the state during this time period; in fact, truants from this county made up half of all truants in the state. Because of the extent of the problem, Pima County began a program called ACT Now (Abolish Chronic Truancy) which aimed to strictly enforce state and district truancy laws and offer a diversion program to address the root causes of truancy. The program also sought to provide serious sanctions for both juveniles and their parents if truancy persisted or if conditions specified by the diversion program were not met. School districts, school administrators, law enforcement personnel, and community agencies are involved in this program.
Once a student has one unexcused absence from school, a letter is sent home to the student's parents explaining the consequences of truancy. After a third unexcused absence, the juvenile is referred to the Center for Juvenile Alternatives (CJA) which makes a recommendation to the juvenile court. A letter is sent to the juvenile's parents explaining the diversion program or the alternative court imposed sanctions, and the parents decide which course of action they would prefer.
The diversion program consists of counseling, parenting classes, support groups, etc. Very often parents have no idea that their child is missing school, or they do not seem to care. Support groups and classes teach parents about the value of education and also help parents communicate more effectively with their teenagers. In their report, the CJA will identify which type of intervention is best for the family, and the juvenile and his or her parents will be referred accordingly. Both parents and the juvenile must sign an agreement promising to abide by the conditions of the diversion program. Successful completion of the program results in the truancy case being dismissed.
The ACT Now program has been formally evaluated by the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI), and each school district involved in the program has shown a steady decrease in the number of truancies each year. In the district with the highest percentage of truancies, ACT Now helped reduce truancies by 64 percent between 1996 and 1998. This program and versions of it are financially supported by the Department of Justice and have been implemented in many other states.