Curfew Laws Put Strain on Freedom

There have been many articles in the Times lately concerning the daytime curfew law. I am a 15-year-old sophomore student at Ocean View High School, and I believe this law is not necessary in all cities. Many students at Ocean View have a period off and leave school early. If this law were to be enforced in Huntington Beach, police officers would constantly be questioning and harassing many students who have a right to be outside.

Each city should also consider the consequences of this law, such as the amount of time police officers would be wasting stopping students that are on the street during school hours. I believe each city and its council members should look over the pros and cons of this law again.

LEE HA

Huntington Beach

* I am a student at Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach. I don’t think a student walking in the streets should be stopped and questioned by a police officer when his or her school isn’t in session.

I guess the council members of the cities should enforce that law if the city really needs it, but I absolutely think that the City Council members should reconsider that law. They should try putting themselves in our shoes and see how it feels.

THAIBINH NGUYEN

Westminster

* Re “She Stakes the People’s Turf in Prosecuting Gang Crimes,” Nov. 4:

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kim Menninger would equate truants with gang members and advocates treating them the same way: Take them back to school. How many parents want known gang members delivered by the police to their children’s classrooms?

California education code allows for control of truants. Criminal laws should take care of gang members. If it doesn’t, then change that law. The problems are not necessarily the same and should not require the same prescription for correction.

I guess I’m one of Menninger’s nightmare parents who wants to raise my own children. I would also like to enjoy our society’s long-enjoyed freedom of movement from town to town and within my own town’s borders. Menninger would restrict that movement for thousands of Orange County youth in order to corral a few known offenders (truants). The schools know each and every child who is truant and those children should be held accountable. Let the other good kids in Orange County, the majority, enjoy our constitutional freedom of movement.

A federal court in Washington D.C., has declared a curfew in that city unconstitutional because it violates the rights of minors and their parents. If it’s unconstitutional there, it’s unconstitutional in Orange County too. Some of us pesky parents have been saying that all along.

KIM KANE

Fullerton