By any name a curfew

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 16

By any name a curfew

Criticism of the action of police in Taumarunui, who imposed what amounted to a curfew on children roaming the streets at night, has brought a swift response that has not necessarily helped matters. One result of the criticism has been an official reminder to the Taumarunui police to follow the letter of the Children and Young Persons Act as it applies to children considered to be at risk. Presumably this instruction will set the general police procedure throughout the country, as the problem is common to almost all urban areas of any size. If observance of too'literal an interpretation of the law hampers the police — and others — in their attempts to protect youngsters and remove them from a detrimental environment, the critics of the curfew will have done no favours for the children or the community. Perhaps a problem was the use of the word “curfew” and the connotations that it has for some people. In simple terms, all that the Taumarunui police did was advise the public, including the children, that the police intended to apply the act to any primary school child found unaccompanied on the streets after 10 p.m. and to any child under the age of 16 years found unaccompanied on the streets after 11.30 p.m. By stating times, the police set clear rules, easily understood. Children generally prefer such guidance. These guidelines are probably similar to those applied by the police in other centres; the difference was that they were announced and incurred the displeasure of the civil libertarians. Even then the matter might not have progressed any further but for an unfortunate comment by the Minister of Police, Mr Couch, who said that the police have acted illegally, but “good on them for using common sense.” It was not wise of the Minister to suggest that members of his department were

acting illegally; it was provocative to give the appearance of condoning an illegality. The Children and Young Persons Act provides ample powers for the police to pick up children found in public places at unreasonable times unaccompanied by a responsible adult. In this context, the Taumarunui police on one recent night found 14 children between the ages of 13 and 15 on the streets at midnight. Three had been convicted of criminal offences and most of the others had come under the notice of the police. Taking such children into protective custody is no infringement of civil liberties. The children usually are in custody only until they can be returned home; if the parents are absent, or drunk, or threatening, arrangements are made to hold the children elsewhere until they can be returned home. To confuse the welfare of a child in these circumstances with his or her civil liberties would be a myopic mischief with the potential for great harm to the child. The police are fully entitled to assume that a person found by night in an enclosed yard with a set of skeleton keys and a jemmy is up to no good. They are equally entitled to assume that a 13-year-old aimlessly roaming city streets at midnight is in a detrimental environment and that the provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act are intended to apply. Whether the reasoning is applied in a blanket fashion, or to each individual child, the result should be some immediate action to protect the child and to remind the parents of their responsibilities. Whether the term “curfew” is used the effect should be pretty much the same as if one was in force. If the issue continues to be contentious, the Government should not hesitate to make it clear in law that the police are entitled — and expected — to act to remove these children from risk.