The City of Williamsport has been exploring what Mayor Derek Slaughter says is a “multi-pronged” approach to managing juvenile behavior and crime among minors under age 18, especially as the school year draws to an end and warmer weather approaches.

Council’s Committee of the Whole met Tuesday and only discussed some of these concepts, including a proposed modification of the ordinance, to amend what is currently the curfew of 11 p.m. to 5 a.m to start at 9 p.m. and increasing some of the current penalties. The amount of the fines would be discussed at the council meeting. The item is scheduled to be on the agenda before council Thursday night.

Police Chief Justin Ottaviano explained how the modifications proposed would not be a “be it all and end all” solution. It just gives “us a little more teeth” in the ordinance, he said.

Slaughter said the ordinance would amend one that has been in existence since 2005 when it first took effect.

“It’s been 11 p.m.,” he said. “We’ve had some conversations amongst the administration with our public safety folks, and for your consideration it is now 9 p.m.,” he said. “We also talked about some other deterrents that might be a little more effective,” he said, adding that included increasing the fines, potentially, that could be imposed.

“This is not new, it has been in place, our officers have been enforcing it since 2005,” Slaughter reiterated. “It is a multipronged approach,” Slaughter said, adding there is an existing 11 p.m. curfew, and, “we’re stopping juveniles as it is.”

“Whether it is a juvenile or anyone else that will be dealt with but the curfew is in place, so we’re just taking it to 9 p.m.,” he said.

“We’ve had several meetings about a multipronged approach, because as the chief has said this is not the be all and end all,” he said.

“We’ve talked about a Boys and Girls Club,” Slaughter said. “We’ve talked about a juvenile rehabilitation center,” he said. “We’ve had multiple meetings over the last few years, actually, with the school district, the county commissioners, the district attorney, juvenile probation and others, day treatment – we’ve even driven down to Harrisburg and we’ve met … with the Secretary of Health and Human Services,” Slaughter said. “Boys and Girls folks actually came up here looking to open a location,” he said.

“We’ve talked about renovating, potentially, out at the county farm, a prison juvenile rehabilitation center for the kids that really need a little bit of punitive consequences,” he said. When considering the detainments of juveniles who committed crimes three, four to five times, the administration is fully understanding that possibly moving the curfew to 9 p.m. probably won’t deter some of that criminal behavior. However, with it being at 11 p.m., as Ottaviano noted, this just “gives us a little more teeth to the current ordinance, but we are still actively exploring upstream approaches to some of these concerns,” Slaughter said.

“We hopefully will have some funding to do the Boys and Girls Club, to open a juvenile rehabilitation center.”

“I would say, also, if a kid is going to work, if a kid is going from one friend’s house to another, it is a case-by-case basis. It is discretionary,” Slaughter said.

“I think we all know what we’d be looking at here, if kids are walking down the street, pulling on door handles,” which Slaughter said he has had video shown to him from citizens showing him three or four kids just going down the street seeing which door is open. “That’s what we are talking about,” Slaughter said. “We’ve stopped a kid that has keys in his pocket from stolen cars. God forbid a firearm something like that where now we are able to, hopefully at some point, get them rehabilitated,” he said.

“We are not looking at this as an end all be all approach,” Slaughter said, adding, “Nor are we looking at it for the kids who are going to or from McDonald’s or Chick fil-A or working at Wegmans or something like that.” “We are actively exploring multiple options to get them rehabilitated.”

Councilman Jon Mackey said what was described in the meeting “are crimes.”

“We don’t need a curfew to address those things,” Mackey said. “Obviously,’ he said, “if you stop anybody with a firearm the first thing you are going to do is find out if they are legally allowed to have that. If they are a juvenile, most likely not.”

What Mackey said concerned him the most with the ordinance modification was the increase in monetary fines, understanding how that system actually works and asked Ottaviano to explain that process that might include the fine and whether the judge considers community service and what that might entail.

Ottaviano reiterated that police would use discretion, such as being aware there are teenagers who work at fast-food restaurants and other times when they might be out past the curfew.

Councilwoman Liz Miele asked Ottaviano what data the department has collected to “make us feel that this would be an effective strategy?”

Ottaviano answered by saying, “Well, this is really giving a little more teeth to the ordinance.”

Miele then asked how many times has it been enforced in the last year.

In 2023: police issued 40 curfew citations; in 2024, 73; and last year, 52.

“How many of those have resulted in payment of a fine?” Miele asked.

Ottaviano acknowledged he did not have that information. That would be through the district magistrate that collects the money.

Miele asked if Ottaviano could get that answer before the council meeting, to which Ottaviano said he would try.

Money isn’t really the issue

Ottaviano stressed how it is “community service,” and judges who actually prefer that path, as do police. “Depending on the circumstances, you have a kid, and he is 14 years old, messing around and gets a curfew violation, obviously he has no money, so his parents are paying.”

For that youngster, the best method of teaching him or her why it was wrong to violate curfew would be some kind of community service, according to Ottaviano.

Now, in the ordinance there is an ability to fine the parents, the chief noted. That is something that has not been done. “I’ve looked back at stats and can’t find a time when we have actually cited the parents under that ordinance, but it is something . .. it is another possibility for us,” Ottaviano said.

For parents, who don’t want to parent, who just let their kids run about, and pay no attention to them, that’s where they need to be hit then,” Ottaviano said. “That’s in their pockets. Making them pay.”

Moreover, there are scenarios in which there are single parents or grandparents who might have guardianship. “That’s not what we are looking to do, to jam them up,” he said. “They might be doing the best they can with what they have.”

“All of these situations are on a case-by-case basis,” he stressed.

Timing change proposed

At the peak of the summer, the sun sets about 8:50 p.m., according to Ottaviano, adding the 9 p.m. curfew would be more than sufficient and “there’s really no reason a kid should be out walking the street at 11 p.m.,” he said.

“Why is it that we feel that it is a bad thing for 17 year olds to be out on the street after 9 p.m.?” Miele asked.

Ottaviano responded.

“Well, it depends on your purpose,” he said. “If you are coming to work, or coming from work, that’s fine,” he said. “But, the kids we’re encountering are just out – up to no good.”

When it gets dark, there are less people out and crime increases, he said. “It’s just easier to commit acts and not be seen.”

Police crime rates increase as soon as it gets warm out, and then, again, when school lets out, pertaining to juveniles, according to the chief.

Parents need to know the kids need to be inside, a matter that makes sense to the department and that is because after dark police usually respond to vehicles being stolen, gun crimes happening . . . obviously, crime happens all of the time, and lowering this and increasing fines is not going to suddenly make crime plummet, or change juveniles, per say, but “it’s a little more teeth and gives us more enforceability.”

Other municipalities 9 p.m. curfew question

Miele asked Ottaviano what other municipalities have this time (9 p.m.) of curfew for minors. He noted many have curfews but was not certain which ones had 9, 10 or 11, adding he could find that out.

Miele said such information would be valuable to her including what municipalities have curfews and how effective they are finding them to be.

Specifically, Miele said she would be interested in data as to whether any of those municipalities have been sued for discrimination by minors and their parents.

“That is something that really concerns me about this ordinance, in general, but especially about increasing enforcement and lowering the time limit start,” she said.

Miele’s main concerns were expressed by her saying that she believed the city should be looking at hard data about existing violations from within the city and impact of those fines on the families that the city has levied them on. She said she also would like to understand “what effect we anticipate this having on our enforcement capabilities, especially given how many officers are on the street?”

She said she presumed that if someone was engaged in actual crime the individual(s) could be arrested or detained for criminal activity. “This is more or less just to detain kids related to them being related specifically for being a minor and out on the street?”she asked the chief.

“Yeah, because generally they are up to no good,” Ottaviano replied. “What’s, let’s say 10:30 at night, what’s a juvenile 13, 14 years old and, obviously, anyone under 18, doing around on the streets?”

Miele replied: “I used to walk around town, all the time as a kid at 1 a.m., and I was literally just walking with my friends.”

“And you were probably never stopped by cops Liz,” added Councilman Jonah Milliken. “I used to run around with my friends as a kid in Williamsport at night,” he said. “I guess I want to start by saying we have got a real problem with juvenile crime.”

He also suggested that there is a responsibility amongst those in the meeting to reduce crime but his concerns to the chief were based on his talking with a lot of parents ahead of this proposed modification of the ordinance.

“I’ve really been battling this,” he said, adding, “I’m concerned that this might be an incorrect solution to a real problem.” Milliken admitted that he did not know 100 % where he landed on this proposal.

Milliken, reflectively, acknowledged it made him a bit uncomfortable because he said he was one of those 13 or 14 or 15 year old kids running around at night and at 16 “I was working. I know you said that is okay but it creates cause to stop a kid who maybe wasn’t committing a crime, but may be scared.”

With that being said, Milliken said he felt he had a responsibility to the police to be a partner to figure out what he as a councilman was doing to address kids running around. He said he did not forget doing a police ride along in December and the officer telling the councilman about his experience at Halloween with kids getting shot.

“We can all sit here and say ‘when we were kids,’ well, the world is a different place than when we were kids,” Ottaviano said.

He noted how he hears people say ’20 years ago I didn’t lock my car’ – “Well, for God sakes, you need to lock your car now,” Ottaviano said. “Times are different. Times have changed.”

Councilman Vince Pulizzi also weighed in on the conversation, touching on tweaks that might be added to the ordinance such as meeting “somewhere in the middle” in terms of the starting time.

Importantly, these are only considerations presented by the administration that council will mull over before the Thursday night meeting, according to Council President Eric Beiter, who welcomed the discussion and viewpoints ahead of the meeting.