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Perspectives
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
editorial editor
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
Truancy won’t be solved by police action
Plans for a curfew during school hours threaten to
unreasonably expand government power
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
Eugene seems to have problems
with priorities. The city is the
oretically suffering from a bud
get crisis. Money is short, and
what little it has is being carefully al
lotted to agencies that are having to
learn to do more with less.
Obviously, there is a need for these
agencies to be efficient. In Eugene, the
city has decided that of utmost impor
tance are the police. Therefore, there is
no agency more in need of efficient op
eration to ensure that its vital services
continue to be available.
Why then, in a time when the police
need to focus their attention on serious
crime and community policing, does
the city keep inventing new ways to
waste police time? Closed parks, skate
board bans and heavy turnouts for
anti-protest duty have all saddled the
police with excess burdens. Now,
Mayor Tim Torrev has another wav to
waste police time while continuing to
convert Eugene to a police state.
Torrey wants to implement a daytime cur
few for Eugene youth. Under the proposal, pre
sented Wednesday at Torrey’s "State of the City”
address, any person of school age found on the street
during school hours could be taken into police custody
and brought to a house where their parents could be
contacted.
The proposal is profoundly flawed at both the practi
cal and the philosophical level. The plan fails to take
into account the serious drain on police time it repre
sents and the inevitable difficulty it will have combat
ting truancy. In addition, it strengthens governmental
and police control over the lives of citizens in a suppos
edly free society.
Torrey and others argue the proposal will in fact re
duce crime. In Salem, a similar plan did slightly lower
rates of juvenile crime. It remains to be seen, however,
whether that reduction was due to the plan or normal
fluctuations in criminal behavior.
In addition, the increased number of police hours
needed to enforce the rule is almost certainly not going
to be offset by any slight reduction in crime. Those po
lice, kept busy rounding up kids, won’t be able to deal
with more serious criminal problems.
Therefore, this plan is not going to make the commu
nity safer. What it will succeed in doing is making busi
nesses feel happier, something the City Council has
proven very adept at this year. Decisions to build park
ing garages, fund research parks, keep “undesirable” ele
ments off 13th Avenue and now ban kids from the
downtown mall during business hours all function to
make life more pleasant for business leaders while mak
ing it more restricted for the community as a whole.
Of course, reducing crime and the presence of street
kids in downtown Eugene are not the only objectives of
the plan. The curfew is also intended to get truant chil
dren back in the classroom.
We certainly agree that truancy needs to be dealt with.
This simply isn’t the correct approach. Truancy is not a
criminal problem; it is a problem for schools and parents
to deal with. Instead of wasting resources on police
roundups, the money could be spent to strengthen
school programs that deal with chronically absent
youth. At this level, the individuality of each case could
be better explored, and those students who truly have a
problem with truancy can be separated from those who
happened to take a sunny afternoon off.
Although the plan is yet to be finalized or passed by
the City Council, Torrey’s initial proposal was remark
ably lacking in plans to deal with the unique nature of
each case. Despite the fact that many, if not most, par
ents are not home during the day, Torrey’s plan hinges
upon contacting those parents and having them come to
personally deal with their children.
The plan also hinges upon the notion that these kids
have parents in the first place. For many of the troubled
youth of particular concern to businesses and communi
ty leaders, family is a foreign concept. Instead of spend
ing resources to provide shelter and education for these
kids, Torrey wants to round them up and hide them
away.
Of course, this could be done in conjunction with the
creation of an alternative education framework to deal
with dropouts and expelled students (another group who
are not clearly accounted for in the plan), something Tor
rey wants to see take place. Unfortunately, while his
plans for the curfew are concrete and immediate, his
plans for an education facility are vague and distant.
At a more fundamental level, this proposal fails to
counter the reasons many of these students are not in
school. Students have to want to participate in the edu
cational process; they have to look upon school as a
privilege to be enjoyed. Instead of this, the proposal
would make schools into prisons.
The most fundamental problem of all is the simple vi
olation of personal liberties. Now, walking down the
street in the middle of the day has become a reason for
police attention. This is troublesome not only for those
students who have a legitimate excuse, such as those
who are home schooled, have an early release or an ap
pointment, but also for those who have no legitimate
reason to be out of class.
There comes a time when the state needs to intervene
in certain problems, including truancy. This proposal
intervenes in individual behavior far before that time,
however. Instead of dealing with the problem at the fam
ily or school level, this plan compels police to examine
and intervene in the affairs of every youth in Eugene.
It is difficult to ever justify such intervention. In this
case, when the benefits are non-existent, justification is
impossible.
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald edito
rial board. Responses may be sent to ode@oregon.uore
gon.edu
READERS' VOICES
How should the University change in the years to come?
More multimedia
use of computers
and off-campus op
tions such as having
options to take class
es over the comput
er. Taking education
out of the classroom
and more into the
community."
Jason Maas
Bespain
Linguistics
It should continue to
be innovative and
grow in whatever
way it sees fit.”
Andrew Carley
Philosophy
"I think the Univer
sity should make
more well-rounded
students. Instead of
just classroom edu
cation, it should work
on educating outside
of the classroom —
education on diversi
ty and other sorts of
issues instead of just
book learning.”
David Lester
Psychology/
Asian studies
“Give more money
to the fine arts de
partment and get
new computers."
Yolin May
Fine arts
“It should add
some more student
parking because
there's not enough
right now, and the
fees are way too high
for the parking it
does have. It should
also fix the EMU and
offer more food
courts.”
Valerie Knutson
Business
“I like the way it’s
functioning. I love the
graduate program.
They could have
rethought the student
activities center
they're building. I
don’t like the fact that
they're getting rid of
the covered tennis
courts."
Lisa Granger
Graduate student
“Increase student
faculty interaction
and the opportunity
for it.”
Katie Nesse
Political science
“I feel the Univer
sity should restruc
ture its student fees
to benefit the stu
dents in a more posi
tive and individual
way."
Rhaetia Hanscum
Psychology/
Theater arts