Historical November 1991 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department announced in early October that youths violating curfews on Fridays and Saturdays will be taken to Area Command Stations to be supervised by off-duty civilian personnel of the Department.
This program was made possible through a grant from the Department of Public Safety of the State of Missouri in the amount of $25,000, enabling the Department to staff the Area Stations with civilian personnel who will be paid overtime.
The civilians who will staff the holding rooms have been trained in detention.
The purpose of the program is to provide a tool to aid police officers in enforcing curfew violations, by relieving the officer of the responsibility of finding a place to put a youth after picking him up.
The officer will automatically take the youth to the Area Command Station to be held in an assembly room which will be supervised by civilian employees.
This will free the officer to return to his normal assigned duties in a timely manner. Parents will be contacted to pick up their children. “Due to a City ordinance,” explained Chief of Police Clarence Harmon, “Parents will be held accountable in City Court if they have not picked up their children. Therefore, the Department expects the program will be successful in getting children back into their parents’ custody!” Chief Harmon also explained, “This program is modeled after the highly successful truancy program in an effort to get youths off our City streets in our never ending fight against crime.” After only twenty-five days into the school year, the Truancy Program apprehended over 400 truants, with most of them being picked up by their parents in a timely manner.
In the past approximately 500 truants were picked up during an entire school year.
This curfew program will be operational on Fridays and Saturdays only. Curfew for Friday and Saturdays is 12:00 midnight. Curfew on Sunday through Thursdays is 11:00 p.m.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1991.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1991_11.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
