Authorities in Starkville and Oktibbeha County are weighing whether to implement a juvenile curfew in an attempt to decrease crime among teenagers and pre-teens.
Oktibbeha County supervisors announced Monday they would host a public hearing to address the potential of a juvenile curfew in June. Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill said after she heard the county was considering a curfew, she wanted to establish one as well.
The announcements come weeks after several high-profile crimes in the Starkville area, including a fatal shooting on Easter Sunday, a shooting in McKee Park April 20 and two people killed on Pilcher Street March 3.
“We are at a crossroads in my opinion,” Spruill said in the city board of aldermen’s work session April 30. “We have had activity north, south and in the middle of our city, and I think this is a time to recognize, to some extent, that we want parents to do it, but parents don’t seem to be parenting like they need to be.”
City aldermen and county supervisors largely expressed support for the curfew, though some said they would like to see tangible data on the effectiveness and success rat
es of juvenile curfews before fully supporting one.
“I am in favor of doing the things we can do that will be beneficial to reducing crime in town,” Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker said, “and if the curfew is one way to do that, I am interested in seeing some data.”
Effectiveness of curfews
There is some question of whether juvenile curfews actually decrease crime.
The National Youth Rights Association, a young people advocacy group, argues juvenile curfews have proven to be ineffective at reducing crime. NYRA Board of Directors member Brian Conner said studies show that gun violence incidents frequently increase due to fewer witnesses being present during curfew hours. Conner noted that Washington, D.C. has implemented multiple juvenile curfews over the last few years without seeing a decrease in crime.
“We did a study and found that a juvenile curfew typically resulted in unchanged juvenile crime,” Conner said. “It actually results in an increase in crime rather than a decrease. In D.C., for example, when there was a juvenile curfew, gun incidents increased by 150 percent.”
But some Mississippi municipalities suggest curfews have helped reduce violent crime. Moss Point Ward 3 Alderman Robert H. Byrd spoke to The Dispatch of the effectiveness of his city’s juvenile curfew. While Moss Point only enacted the curfew for a few months at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, it greatly helped decrease juvenile crime in the area.
“When we did enact it, it helped a lot in terms of getting the kids off the streets earlier,” Byrd said. “The longer they stay out there, the worse it gets.”
Starkville Police Department Public Information Officer Brandon Lovelady said SPD will meet Tuesday to gather information and data on curfews.
Police Chief Mark Ballard said many crimes committed by teenagers begin with minors breaking into vehicles and stealing firearms, then using those stolen weapons to commit crime.
“Our purpose for the juvenile curfew is to help address the crime of auto burglary,” Ballard said. “It’s not necessarily large loitering or issues like that. The heart of all of this starts with auto burglaries.”
Proposed curfew hours
Spruill said she would like to see the hours of the curfew be 11 p.m.-6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and midnight-6 a.m. Friday and Saturday for anyone under the age of 18, and Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Brett Watson said these would be the same for the county. Spruill added those hours may need to be adjusted based on particular factors and would like to hear input from residents on preferred times. She also said there would be exceptions to the curfew including work, athletic practices and hunting.
Although the purpose of a juvenile curfew is to decrease crime in the area, most of the violent crimes that have occurred in Starkville over the past months have not been during the proposed nighttime hours. Police responded to the shooting on Easter Sunday at 5:17 p.m., and the McKee Park shooting took place at 9:11 p.m. The shootings on Pilcher Street occurred around 5 p.m.
But Ballard said the auto burglaries are mostly occurring at night. In 2020, he said, there were 274 auto burglaries. There have been 39 just this year, with 31 reported stolen firearms in vehicles.
Ballard said vehicle burglary peak hours were from midnight to 4 a.m., and a curfew would help decrease these vehicle break-ins. He said he feels however the board decides to proceed with the curfew, it will be done in an appropriate way.
“Common sense will be applied in whatever they do with it moving forward and dealing with our children,” Ballard said.
The public hearings will be May 18 and June 1 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall and on June 7 at 6 p.m. in the Oktibbeha County Courthouse.
Aldermen reactions
Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk and Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty said they wanted to see data on juvenile curfews’ effectiveness, while Ward 6 Alderman and Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins said he supports a curfew.
Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn, who recently had a nephew killed due to violent crime in Starkville, said crime in the area has gotten out of hand, and this can be a way to minimize it.
“I am for the curfew,” Vaughn said. “We got to go back to ‘when you see something, say something’ for our community to stay strong and stay safe. I’ve been here 68 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life. I’m going to support it fully.”
Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver said he would support a curfew but believes it should extend to other counties in the area.
“They don’t work unless really all of the surrounding counties have curfews as well …” Carver said. “You need Lowndes and Clay doing the same thing because kids are up to no good, and they’re going to leave Starkville to somewhere where there isn’t a curfew like Columbus or West Point to interact with other people. For it to be effective, everyone in the Golden Triangle should be on board.”
Lowndes County District 5 Supervisor and Columbus’s Community Crime Prevention Task Force Chairman Leroy Brooks said he had already mentioned the idea of a juvenile curfew to Columbus Chief of Police Fred Shelton and Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins. He said the task force will meet in a few weeks, and a curfew will be a topic of discussion.
“There is no reason for a 13- or 14-year-old to be out at 2 or 3 in the morning,” Brooks said. “I’m hoping that when we meet with the crime prevention task force, we’ll talk about it because the sheriff and chief of police are both on the task force, so we can get their input and thoughts.”
Supervisors’ views
Oktibbeha supervisors’ views on the curfew largely reflected those of the aldermen. John Montgomery, Orlando Trainer and board president Joe Williams, of Districts 1, 2 and 5 respectively, said they would support enacting a curfew. District 4 Supervisor Bricklee Miller said she would like to hear comments and thoughts from the public before making a decision.
Board attorney Rob Roberson said a curfew in the county would be for the same purpose as the city — to prevent violent crime. He said he wants a juvenile curfew to be carried out the proper and ethical way.
“This shouldn’t be something that sheriff’s deputies are just going out and writing tickets for,” Roberson said. “I do not want this to be a money-maker dynamic or a harassment type dynamic, but if you’re 16 years old and you’re out at 3 a.m., then there’s something wrong.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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