(NewsNation) — A Chicago alderman has proposed fining parents up to $5,000 for “out of control” kids he claims are causing “90 percent” of the city’s problems in the form of chaotic street takeovers.
Youth violence in Chicago is on the rise, with shootings involving youth 17 years or younger up 50% since 2019. About 90% of those kids are not enrolled in school, 8% were arrested for homicides, 9% for shootings, 32% for robberies.
Videos posted on social media from this past weekend in Chicago show hundreds of teens swarming downtown. Some destroy cars and then go drag racing on the streets. It is hardly the first incident of such behavior.
Democrat Alderman Ray Lopez joined “On Balance With Leland Vittert” on Thursday to discuss the new punishment proposal, making parents responsible for kids’ unruly behavior.
Lopez said the Municipal Code of Chicago already deals with crimes committed by minors, but it’s been weakly enforced, and poorly administered.
“I want to change that,” he said.
According to reports, the ordinance that Lopez introduced would make it a crime for any parent or legal guardian to “willfully and/or knowingly allow a minor in their charge to engage in a host of offenses wreaking havoc on the quality of life in Chicago neighborhoods”
Those offenses range from panhandling, underage and public drinking and cannabis use, violating curfew and ‘climbing on’ cars to street takeovers and drag racing,” the ordinance states.
Fines would range from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the offense.
“I want to start by upping the fines, hitting parents where it hurts,” Lopez said, “as well as requiring them to go to family counseling so that we can start changing their behavior, being blissfully unaware of what their kids are doing on the streets of the city of Chicago.”
All of the crimes would require offenders to perform community service and undergo “licensed family counseling.”
Lopez said it’s time that parents realize that you can’t “sit on the couch, or in your bedroom,” unaware of where your kids are “while they’re destroying the city.”
“We have seen scenes like this before, time and time again, where our youth are out at 2, 3 in the morning, by the hundreds taking over intersections, causing mayhem and chaos everywhere they go.”
Lopez said the city is finally at the point where its residents are saying enough.
When asked how parents are going to be that responsible for their kids after they go to bed or they’re out working and the kid leaves the house, Lopez said, “I refuse to believe that is a real excuse.”
“I refuse to believe that simply because you may be poor that you are unable to love your kids enough to be attentive to what they are doing,” Lopez said, “to whom they are hanging out with and to what they do when you go to sleep.”