Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : City Curfew on Youths Credited in Part for Drop in Graffiti : Law: Tagging incidents fall to 66 from 103. Rights advocates warn that Santa Clarita’s program may allow for discriminatory enforcement.

Stepped-up enforcement this summer of the city’s curfew on minors has been credited, in part, for the reduction of graffiti incidents by more than a third, law enforcement officials said.

According to a new graffiti-tracking computer system, the number of taggings went from 103 in May, just before curfew enforcement began, to 66 in July, said Sgt. Carl Deeley, who heads a Santa Clarita sheriff’s unit aimed at gang and graffiti prevention.

Other influences, however, such as students being on summer vacation, Deeley said, could also have contributed to the decline.

The 10 p.m. curfew on those under 18 was first passed by the city in 1991, but not widely enforced until June when sheriff’s deputies began to use it to battle increasing problems with graffiti.

“We’re not out looking to just arrest all kids,” Deeley said. “The crime is if you’re out loitering, driving aimlessly, hanging out in parking lots. . . .This is going to affect the kids who are looking for trouble.”

Deeley said the curfew law gives authorities the power to detain youths and determine if they may be violating other laws, such as having alcohol, drugs or tools for graffiti.

The curfew, which carries a penalty from 30 to 140 hours of community service, makes it illegal for any person under 18 to “loiter, idle, wander, stroll or aimlessly drive about or ride about in or upon any public street. . .place or public building, place of amusement or eating place, vacant lot or unsupervised place” between 10 p.m. and sunrise.

The ordinance makes exceptions for minors accompanied by a parent, on an errand directed by their parents, returning home or working.

The curfew program will soon take on a new twist, with violators being issued citations, much like traffic tickets, instead of being arrested and taken into custody. The citation program, said Superior Court Judge David Beach, diverts curfew violators from Juvenile Court and into Juvenile Traffic Court, which is quicker and reserves Juvenile Court for more serious offenses.

But civil rights advocates warn that curfew laws such as Santa Clarita’s allow for selective and discriminatory enforcement. Since law enforcement admittedly will not be arresting every juvenile on the streets after 10 p.m., it gives the police the power to decide who to stop and who to let go.

“These ordinances tend to be a tool that allows police officers to bring people in for conduct that is ordinarily perfectly legal,” said Mark Silverstein, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles.

Curfews may also nurture a lack of respect for law enforcement by youngsters when they feel that they are being harassed, said Joan Howarth, a law professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

“People who are being picked up on a curfew violation are not being picked up for any serious act,” Howarth said. “They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a stop-gap measure that doesn’t address the serious crimes.”

But it’s to prevent more serious crimes that law enforcement needs the curfew, Deeley said. Without the curfew laws, he said, deputies would not have the ability to detain, question and check the backgrounds of some youths who are, for example, loitering in an empty liquor store parking lot.