Mothers and fathers, do you know where your children are? Well, tonight you'd better because a curfew will be in effect. At 8:00p.m. all children under 13 years who are on the streets will be picked up by police and human development personnel. You may be saying, "sure, a curfew, we've all heard it before, and then never heard of it again." Well ‘dis da no dat', according to police press officer G. Michael Reid.
G. Michael Reid – Public Relations Police Department
"There is a curfew that will be put in effect as of 8 O'clock. It's a coordinated effort between the police and the Department of Human Development and other concerned parties. We believe that there are increasing number of young children who are on the streets late at night and something has to be done. The department has gotten a lot of complaints and concerns from residents and we believe that we need to do something."
"The first move will be, we'll try to locate their parents and where they live and take them home and do some talking to the parents to let them understand that they have the responsibility of. It is their duty to ensure that these children are supervised and are at home at a safe hour. The ones who we cannot locate the parents will be held with the Human Development Officers."
Jules Vasquez
"One has the sense that this is a sort of knee-jerk reaction and it's not a serious commitment on behalf of the departments of Human Development and your department to really combat it. It's just a flash in the pan."
G.Michael Reid
"Well something has to be done Jules. And if sometimes there are incidents that serve as impetus for actions and in that case then the fact that the action is being coordinated is more important that to not do anything at all."
Reid says that charges will be brought against parents for those children found in repeated offences.