If you think you’ve heard this story before, you probably have. Spring has arrived and as we move toward summer, gang violence season in Baltimore, Maryland is back in full swing. That’s particularly true in the city’s Inner Harbor region, where large crowds frequently gather, leading to regular outbreaks of violence. Many of the combatants are underage. With the number of shootings in Baltimore showing no signs of abating, Mayor Brandon Scott announced this week that he plans to impose a curfew on young people throughout the summer. He will attempt to order children under the age of 14 off the streets by nine pm and those under 17 will need to go home by ten. Of course, ordering a curfew and enforcing a curfew are very different things. (CBS News)

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is calling for a citywide curfew for minors this summer.

This comes after a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were injured after a large fight among minors broke out Sunday night near the Inner Harbor.

Police said, at one point, there were more than 200 teenagers along E. Pratt Street around 9 p.m. Two were arrested after fleeing the scene, including one who was found with a loaded gun in the parking garage of police headquarters.

The Mayor apparently felt like he had to do something after a massive fight broke out near the Inner Harbor Sunday night. There were multiple injuries and the scene quickly devolved into chaos. Baltimore is already up to 74 murders in 2023 and we’re barely a week into April.

Young males do account for a significant amount of violent crime in Baltimore, primarily because the gangs recruit them at earlier and earlier ages. So at first glance, it might seem as if a curfew would be a good idea. But how effective can it possibly be?

Any of the kids who will meekly follow instructions from the police and go home at the time they are told are probably not the ones you need to worry about. It’s the ones that are actually causing trouble that need to be addressed. Take that fight at Inner Harbor I mentioned above. The police reported more than 200 teens in the vicinity. If they don’t all disperse when instructed to do so, how many cops will it take to physically remove them all? And how long would that take?

All of that might apply to the teens that we could simply think of as “troublemakers.” But what about the actual gangbangers? The whole purpose of the curfew is to get teens off the streets at night. But if there’s some sixteen-year-old who’s already a card-carrying member of the Crenshaw Mafia (an actual gang in Baltimore) who is packing a Glock on his way to knock over a rival gang’s crackhouse, what do you suppose he’s going to think when he notices the time? ‘Oh, dear. I really could use the money but I don’t want to be out after curfew.’

Baltimore tried the same thing last summer but it didn’t seem to cause a noticeable dip in the crime rates. We probably shouldn’t expect this year to be any different.