By JIM BARON

CENTRAL FALLS — As of last night, teens picked up for violating the city’s curfew are being brought by police to the Wyatt Detention Center.

The youths will be held in an unlocked classroom at a training facility across the street from the privately operated prison and watched over by a Wyatt correctional officer until a parent comes to claim them.
The parent will be assessed a fine upon retrieving their child. They will also be charged a $31.37 per hour “babysitting fee” if they do not come to claim the offender within one hour.
“This is zero tolerance and no nonsense,” Mayor Charles Moreau declared at a City Hall press conference on Friday announcing the new arrangement with Police Chief Joseph Moran and Wyatt Warden Wayne Salisbury.
“We’re not going to take any nonsense from any kids that are hanging around on the streets of Central Falls — end of story.
“It is unprecedented, probably in the country, that kids are going to be held in a detention facility,” the mayor said. “The thought of it, hopefully, it’s almost like a Scared Straight thing for the parents and the kids that you are going to go to a detention facility now.”
“The curfew will last as long as I am mayor, whether the ACLU or anyone else comes in to fight it,” Moreau asserted.
The curfew is set at 9 p.m., but will be extended to 10 p.m. on Halloween nights, officials said.
A legal challenge from the ACLU is a possibility, “if we hear from a teenager or parents who are affected,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the organization’s Rhode Island affiliate, who was sitting in the back of the room during the press conference.
Brown decried the plan as “completely inappropriate.
“What we are talking about are kids who have committed no criminal offense and treating them like prisoners of war — locking them up in a detention facility. I think most people would be appalled at the notion that kids are being detained in a jail facility simply for being out after nine o’clock at night.”
“This is a solution looking for a problem,” Brown told reporters afterward. While there were two murders in the city earlier in the year, he said, “one of them took place in the afternoon, during daylight hours.
A curfew, he added, “is a totally ineffective way to address those problems. Juveniles who are interested in committing serious crime late at night are not going to worry about their parents getting a $100 fine for being out on the streets after nine o’clock.”
Brown said, “A real irony is, a 17-year-old can enlist in the military. If they come back to Central Falls and they don’t have a note from their parents, they can end up in jail. It’s really unfortunate that kids are being demonized in this way. Teenagers shouldn’t be sent to jail simply for walking on the street with friends and talking.”
Asked if he had any qualms about the civil liberties implications for the city’s youth, Moreau said, “Absolutely not, none at all, not for a second.”
Describing a midnight phone call he got last April informing him about the teen homicide, Moreau said, “It’s not going to happen again while I am the mayor.”
Moreau imposed the curfew last April, after two youths were murdered in the city on two consecutive days. It was fine-tuned into an ordinance passed by the City Council in June. It forbids anyone under the age of 18 to be in a public place, in a vehicle or in any establishment in the city after 9 p.m. unless they are accompanied by an adult; involved in an emergency; going to or coming from a place of employment or a school or civic activity, or are on the sidewalk directly in front of their home.
Violators are given a warning for a first offense. The next time, they will be taken to the police station where their parents will be called, then taken to the Wyatt facility. Parents will be fined $100 for that offense, $200 for the next, and $300 for subsequent offenses. The $31.37 hourly charge is added to the fine.
Until now, Moran said, a Central Falls police officer who apprehended a teen violator would have to stay in the police station watching the youth until his or her parent arrived. He said the new plan would take the “babysitting” duties away from the police, allowing them to go back out on the street, and have a correctional officer stay with them.
The plan was enabled by a little-noticed ordinance passed during this year’s General Assembly session that allowed Wyatt correctional officers to be deemed “peace officers,” giving them authority to assist the city’s police department.
“The good parents, who watch their kids and take care of their kids, are happy we are doing this,” Moreau said. “It gives some teeth to their curfews to tell the kids to be home, just like our parents told us to be home when the streetlights are on. Kids have to be home now by nine o’clock. The good parents of Central Falls appreciate that.”