Gloversville officials hosted a public forum Thursday to discuss proposed solutions to the city’s uptick in youth crime.
This summer, the city of Gloversville has seen a dramatic uptick in youth delinquency.
According to the Gloversville Police Department, from January 1st to August 26th, they’ve made 63 juvenile arrests. For comparison, Johnstown Police and the Fulton County Sheriffs Department have each only made five juvenile arrests in the same time frame.
The city has been dealing with concerns about troubling youth behavior for some time, but this summer things have reached a boiling point.
Earlier this month six teenagers were arrested after an altercation with a city police officer at the city’s annual Railfest celebration.
In the past two weeks, the public bathrooms at the city’s spray pad were closed due to reported vandalism and repeated misuse.
Residents have been frustrated by the apparent lack of action from city leadership, though ahead of Thursday’s meeting a youth curfew had been proposed; it would prohibit unaccompanied minors from being out in the city between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. with some exemptions for religious, school, or work obligations.
Thursday's meeting saw roughly 50 residents in attendance compared to the hundreds of comments left on Facebook posts about the most recent incidents of youth violence.
Even with the proposed curfew, residents want to see more done to address the rise in youth crimes – many, like Jamie Page, acknowledged that this is a multi-faceted issue that won’t be solved with a single solution.
“I think we need to be careful about oversimplifying the problem. It's easy to blame the parents, it's easy to blame the schools, the police, the young people themselves. And certainly there are situations where each may play a role. But there is rarely one cause and one person to blame. Our young people are complicated and so are the circumstances surrounding them. Some are dealing with trauma, mental health challenges, substance use, poverty, family conflict, learning difficulties, peer pressure, or simply a lack of positive connections and opportunities,” said Page.
Then there’s the actual feasibility of a curfew – Mayor Gary Antonucci said enforcing a curfew may not be realistic.
“It's like Albany, their curfew failed. If Albany can't put a curfew through, what do you think Gloversville is going to be able to do? So, I don't think—if we put it through, if we try to put it through the police have to enforce it and there's not enough police to enforce something like that. I truly believe when you were a child, when I was a child, I know I'm a lot older than you, your parents were your curfew,” said Antonucci.
Antonucci said officials are still considering the curfew, though the odds of it getting over the finish line are low.
He added that the city is continuing to coordinate with social services and county offices to determine next steps.
Gloversville Enlarged School District Superintendent David Halloran was there. He agreed that the issue likely wouldn’t be solved with a single curfew.
DiAnne Mott was also at the meeting – she’s the Family Outreach Coordinator for the school district. She’s been going out at night to meet some of these kids where they are.
“What they really want is they're up and they want to do something with their friends. And so, they're hanging but they don't know how to do things constructively. And so hopefully we can all get together and find ways to do something constructively and if they can transfer that to the off-hours and not just the hours that we normally have structured event, I think we're going to find a positive approach that, you know, 'we want you to be kids, but we want you to be responsible kids.' And that's what we're looking for,” said Mott.
