President Trump’s law-and-order campaign in Washington, D.C. just got personal for parents.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced on May 15 that her office will aggressively prosecute parents under the District’s curfew law if their children are found violating it.

The message was blunt: supervise your kids or face criminal consequences.

Pirro did not mince words, saying law-abiding taxpayers should no longer have to pay for the chaos caused by parental neglect.

The announcement comes as teen takeovers and public disorder have plagued the nation’s capital, and it signals that the Trump administration is done tolerating it.

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The warning has a legal backbone. D.C. law already has teeth when it comes to holding parents accountable.

According to the D.C. Law Library, the curfew statute spells out exactly how enforcement works and who is on the hook:

D.C. Code section 2-1543 says a minor commits an offense by remaining in a public place or on the premises of an establishment during curfew hours. It also says a parent or guardian commits an offense if he or she knowingly permits, or by insufficient control allows, the minor to remain there during curfew hours.

Before taking enforcement action, police must ask the apparent offender’s age and reason for being in public. The code lists defenses including being accompanied by a parent, running a parent-directed errand, traveling interstate, working or returning from work, responding to an emergency, or exercising First Amendment rights.

A minor found in violation is taken to police custody or another designated area and released to a parent, guardian, or responsible adult. Adult violations can be punished by a fine not exceeding $500 or community service, and parents may be required to complete parenting classes.

In other words, the law puts the responsibility exactly where it belongs: on the parents.

If you knowingly let your kid roam D.C. streets after curfew, or you simply fail to control where they are, you are the one who answers for it.

The D.C. government lays out the specific curfew hours and makes clear that even visitors are covered:

The D.C. government juvenile-curfew page says persons age 18 and under cannot remain in public places or establishments during curfew hours unless engaged in exempted activities. Regular curfew begins at 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and runs until 6 a.m. the following day, while weekend curfew runs from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

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Juvenile curfew zones can also be designated for groups of nine or more youths, with hours starting no earlier than 8 p.m. and ending no later than 6 a.m. The law applies to all people age 18 and under in D.C., including non-District residents.

A parent or legal guardian commits an offense if he or she knowingly permits, or by insufficient control allows, a minor to violate the law. Adult violations can bring a fine not exceeding $500 or community service, while minors may face up to 25 hours of community service.

That last detail is important. You do not have to live in D.C. for this to apply to your family.

Pirro’s crackdown is part of a much larger effort. The D.C. Safe Task Force has been producing real results under the Trump administration, and the numbers speak for themselves.

In just one year: 12,886 arrests, 1,418 firearms seized, and more than 7,000 convictions secured.

Those are not talking points. Those are neighborhoods getting safer because someone finally decided to enforce the law.

For years, D.C. treated juvenile crime and public disorder as someone else’s problem. Soft-on-crime policies let teens run wild while parents faced zero accountability.

That era is over.

Pirro is making it clear that if your child is part of the problem, you will be treated as part of the problem too. And with the full weight of the U.S. Attorney’s office behind this push, parents in and around the District should take the warning seriously.

 

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