The South Street "Riots": The REAL Solution

Last Saturday, 3000 teenagers descended on South Street. No one knows why, no one has any answers, and since we don't have any answers, I can only assume either no one bothered to ASK the teenagers why they were there or they aren't talking (save the inane answer, "I saw a post on Twitter, so I came down." Sheep).

The dumbest things to come out of this have been either stupid, clueless, or harmful to everyone. Oddly enough, its the adults who are doing the damage.


STUPID IDEA 1: Councilman Kenny, apparently thinking the Internet IS "a series of tubes", is trying to sue social networking sites for not policing their sites and is demanding that they do something when they see something like this happen.

THE PROBLEM: The problem is actually pretty big.

For starters, that's impossible to actually do. Google can barely keep out pedophiles, so what chance does Facebook or Twitter have of finding what most likely would amount to .2% of their overall traffic and making an educated guess that, yes, it could mean a possible "flash mob"?

The next problem is that this begins to create a problem with policing the internet that can hurt everyone in the end. Remember how the Iranian government DEMANDED that Twitter shut down because the people opposing the government were using it to organize and protest peacefully against the rigged elections there?

-Not pictured: The Iranian Government going crazy

Are these kids trying to do anything like this? NOT EVEN CLOSE, but if the government sued and won, it would mean that social networking sites would immediately become another weapon the government could use against its people.


STUPID IDEA 2: The other idea is raising the curfew for people under 18. Currently, it's 10:30pm Sunday - Thursday, and 12:01AM on Fridays and Saturdays. If the parents and certain groups get their way, they want it as early as 9:30PM.

THE PROBLEM: It ignores the actual problems.

As I wrote before, if this is happening for a reason, its most likely because they're young and want SOMETHING to do. If you have 3000 people hanging out, being peaceful (on a whole), and shopping, it isn't a problem. Its a problem when there is violence, but its almost like pure statistics; Out of 3000 people, there is bound to be some problems. Everything in this city seems to close down at 7PM, and if you're young, poor, and don't drink, there isn't much to do.

Look at New York City, where crime has gone down over the last 20 years and they aren't facing these same problems. Don't you think it makes sense to keep businesses open later and encourage people to, well, shop and have fun?

The other problem lies in concerts. We already have a problem in this city with getting concerts in this city, and the new curfew isn't going to help at all.

Not only that, but it also doesn't do anything about the only random gatherings around Center City that happen after school, before even 6PM.


THE FINAL PROBLEM: People don't want these people to gather... but that's against the constitution. As American's, we have the right to Freedom of Assembly, and as such the right to gather in a peaceful matter. In these incidents, we're not seeing the right abused; we're seeing it used right, and only a select few abusing it. In fact, even with the events on video taken into account, there were, out of 3000 people, a total of 4 incidents.

More and more, people seem to take it like A Clockwork Orange is coming to life.

"Real Horrorshow, the sight of the red red kroovy on the ground!"

THE SOLUTION:

Wouldn't it make more sense to just have something to do?

Look, I've been saying for years that the city needs to have stores open later, and no one has listened. It isn't a great solution, but its also not my only one. It may sound out, but midnight basketball programs during the 90's also helped to reduce on this type of behavior, and crime as a whole. The concept was simple; give kids something to do.