(A) The county has a compelling interest in reducing the rate of juvenile crime and victimization. Minors are particularly vulnerable to violence and to the pressure to participate in criminal activity due to their limited ability to make critical decisions in an informed and mature manner. Enactment and enforcement of a daytime and nighttime juvenile curfew reduces the amount of juvenile crime and victimization.
(B) In addition to reducing the rate of juvenile crime and victimization, a daytime curfew also serves to promote the county's compelling interest in prohibiting daytime presence in public places by those subject to compulsory education. State law requires all persons between the ages of six and 18 to attend school. Regular school attendance provides important benefits not only to the students themselves but also to the health, safety, and welfare of all residents within the county.
(C) The community as a whole suffers when a minor student is not attending school. Truancy also often leads to vandalism, petty theft, daytime burglaries, and other criminal activity. Truants often tend to loiter in and about public places. Frequently, persons going about their lawful business as well as public property become targets of the delinquent behavior of truants when they should be in school.
(D) This article is intended to assist with the policing of public places in the county during specified daytime and nighttime hours, and the prevention of crimes by and against minors during those hours. It is not intended to interfere with or supersede the enforcement of state laws regulating education or truancy or with local school district's truancy programs. Rather this article is intended to provide the county with an additional proactive intervention tool to protect youth and prevent crime.
(Ord. 896, § 1(part))