By Howard Schneider and Nancy Lewis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 7, 1995; Page A1

D.C. Mayor Marion Barry signed into law yesterday a curfew that will allow police to detain youths 16 or younger who are out after hours without an acceptable excuse and to hold them at one of three city curfew centers until a guardian arrives.

Flanked by two dozen teenagers who support the new restriction on them and their peers, Barry said the measure is needed to combat juvenile violence and the breakdown of parental oversight in some families. Police officials said they would start enforcing the curfew in 10 days.

But Barry's description of the way the curfew will be enforced is not practical and conflicts with existing laws, say critics of the new law. And some of the agencies that will be involved in handling curfew violations -- such as the corporation counsel and the Department of Human Services -- haven't worked out how they will handle the cases.

If the law works as he hopes, Barry said, parents in the city soon will be asking themselves the same question every night: Do you know where your children are?

"This is about the civil rights of the next generation," Barry said, alluding to the arguments of curfew opponents that the new law is unconstitutional. "Our young people ought to be safe. . . . Our communities ought to be safe."

Enforcement details still are being worked out, but police officials said they will take a lenient approach at first. Violating the curfew, like all juvenile offenses, is not a crime and will not leave the youth with a criminal record. Rather, Barry (D) and supporters on the D.C. Council say they hope it will give the city an efficient tool to identify and work with troubled families.

The first time a youth is picked up under the curfew, for example, the only likely repercussion will be a requirement that the youth and family attend counseling sessions. Subsequent violations, however, could leave the parents facing a civil fine of up to $500. The fine is meant to tell parents, Barry said, that "there is no logical reason" for their children to be out late at night.

The curfew will be from midnight to 6 a.m. during the summer. During the school year, the curfew for weeknights will be 11 p.m.

The bill signing puts the District in the same camp as Dallas, New Orleans and other cities that are resorting to curfews to control the behavior of teenagers and to try to reduce violent crime. Barry administration officials said the curfew is meant to mesh with other new efforts to control youth violence, including a violence hot line and a network of "safe houses," to which teenagers and children can go if they feel threatened.

Civil liberties groups, successful in voiding previous District curfew laws, plan to challenge the new law. Arthur Spitzer, local director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said a lawsuit probably will be filed after the first juveniles have been detained under the statute.

That won't be until at least the middle of the month, and probably later, said Deputy Police Chief Larry Soulsby. Although the law became effective when Barry signed it, Soulsby said the police will spend the next 10 days developing their enforcement plans, training officers and distributing fliers around the city to let residents, merchants and, most of all, teenagers know about the new restrictions. Actual enforcement won't begin until July 16. Even then, Soulsby said, the department will give youths found on the street the benefit of the doubt.

The law includes a broad list of exemptions for youths of curfew age. They include "interstate travel," running errands for a parent, traveling to or from a job or "exercising First Amendment rights."

At first, Soulsby said, youths citing such a reason probably will not be detained. If they are found a second time, he said, a parent might be called to confirm the story.

Soulsby also said that enforcement for youths in cars will be minimal: Police would have to have another reason to stop a vehicle, he said, before they could question and cite anyone in it for curfew violations.

Teenagers detained under the curfew will be taken to one of three curfew centers: Penn Center, Third and R streets NE; the Upshur Street Recreation Center, 14th Street and Arkansas Avenue NW; and the Weatherless School, Burns and C streets SE.

Curfew violators will be held there until a parent or guardian arrives. If no one gets them by 6 a.m., the youths will be taken to the city Department of Human Services.

The law requires all curfew violations to be handled by the Family Division of D.C. Superior Court, so judges, not police officers, will determine whether fines are imposed. However, there are no specific provisions in the new law that spell out how the cases will get to court.

For their part, the teenagers who attended Barry's news conference said they were all for the idea.

"I don't think it's unfair," said Chartrese Day, 16. "There's nothing to do at 12 in the morning."