The City of Owensboro along with the Owensboro Police Department has released a survey to gain community feedback related to the current juvenile curfew. Owensboro-Daviess County currently imposes a curfew prohibiting juveniles from being in public between the hours of 1–5 a.m., with limited exceptions.
The survey will be available until Feb. 20, and the data will be used to determine what our community stakeholders wish to see in terms of a curfew ordinance.
OPD Major JD Winkler in January presented data to city officials pertaining to the number of curfew violations.
He said he did not recommend the city to enforce the curfew, as he noted there were 46 violations from 2019 to 2021 and only 4 of those cases were not dismissed by the court.
“The reality is that curfew violations are viewed by the court system as a minor offense and they’re often dismissed [by the courts],” Winkler said in January.
He also noted that gun crime, which would be the main proponent for the curfew, does not occur at a high enough rate to assume this would fix the problem in the city.
He previously said that only two of the gun crimes that occurred between minors in 2019 to 2021 were during the curfew.
Winkler said that initiating the curfew also puts the relationship between OPD and the community at risk.
Monday evening during the Owensboro Community Collaborative Task Force meeting, Police Chief Art Ealum said that legislation also can not be pinned to help control families and act as disciplinary factors.
“You think an ordinance is gonna change that?” he asked. “It’s not.”
