U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro vowed to clamp down on juvenile curfew enforcement, telling parents that they could face charges if their children violate curfew.
“Law-abiding taxpayers should no longer have to pay for parental neglect. Parents: Do your job. Or we will do ours,” she said at a Friday news conference.
The get-tough move aims to curb the district’s “teen takeovers” — flash-mob-like gatherings coordinated over social media that often turn into serious altercations requiring police action. It has grown both increasingly popular and problematic in places like the Navy Yard, resulting in the arrest of multiple minors accused of fighting each other and police officers, heightening public safety fears in the city.
It prompted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to impose a series of juvenile curfews in Navy Yard, including a permanent curfew that allows Metropolitan Police to establish curfew zones forbidding large groups of youths from gathering beginning at 8 p.m.
While the D.C. Council passed a curfew bill, it still needs a 30-day congressional review before it can take effect.
Ms. Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital, announced that her office will be “aggressively prosecuting parents” whose teenagers violate the curfew.
Her plans stem from a local statute about contributing to the delinquency of a minor as a strategy to combat the teen takeovers. Her federal office, however, is prohibited from prosecuting most juvenile offenders directly, as family court and curfew violation enforcement are handled strictly by the D.C. Attorney General’s Office.
“That does not preclude me from bringing charges against the parents,” she said Friday.
She said that parents who fail to supervise their children or know they are participating in dangerous takeovers must face legal consequences, such as counseling mandates or court-ordered sanctions.
Despite staffing challenges in her office, Ms. Pirro said that prosecutors are ready to work overtime to handle this charge.
“Am I down in staff? Absolutely,” she said. “But are we willing to take charge and do what we have to and work day and night and work weekends? We do that.”
Alongside her threat to charge parents, Ms. Pirro has publicly lobbied to lower the age of criminal accountability in the District, arguing that the family-court and rehabilitation-focused system fails to deter repeat violent offenders.
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