Unsupervised youths who are out late at night can too easily become perpetrators and victims of crimes and violence, van Gorder said. “I don’t think the streets are safe at night.”

While a curfew is probably a good idea, van Gorder said he would like to have police and the community weigh in on this topic, which has proven controversial in many cities.

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Two decades ago, Napa tried to adopt a daytime curfew, but ran into opposition from parents who home school their kids.

A city ordinance imposes a curfew on people under 18 between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., but it hasn’t been enforced in years.

Napa’s curfew, which contains exceptions for teens returning home from work and special events, is “unconstitutionally vague,” City Attorney Michael Barrett said.

Curfews have been a “faddish response” to youth crime over the years, said Michael Risher, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco.

Their effectiveness has not been proven, yet they have been in and out of favor depending on the public’s alarm over juvenile crime, Risher said.

A federal district court ruled against San Diego’s curfew in 1997, which caused many cities to back away from restrictions on teen activity at night, Risher said. Others make curfews part of their crime-fighting arsenal of tools, he said.

The U.S. constitution protects rights of free speech and association. As interpreted by the courts, this right can apply to youths who want to be outside their home at night, Risher said.

Should a youth who is acting responsibly have to risk being apprehended by police, then prove that he was not up to mischief? he asked. Jobs, church activities and other events can get out after curfew time, he said.

Dan Monez, Napa’s former police chief, remembers several night sweeps in the early 90s when police tried to get loitering youths off the streets.

Police also advocated a daytime curfew to prevent gang members from hanging out near Napa High School and causing fights, he said.

“We couldn’t figure out how to make it fair,” Monez said of the day curfew idea. Police ended up enforcing a penal code provision against loitering near school campuses and the daytime problem went away, he said.

Faced with a recent increase in gang violence, the city and local law enforcement agencies intend to create two task forces. One will involve law enforcement in a countywide gang suppression unit. The other will bring together community groups to devise a prevention plan.

Police are part of the solution, but parents, schools and community groups have to play a role as well, Napa Police Chief Rich Melton said.

“You can’t just say, ‘Let’s do a curfew,’” Melton said. How much police time would an community-wide curfew require? If officer are picking up kids all night, what other police activities will suffer?

The law does not allow youths who violate curfews to be kept at Juvenile Hall, so where would police put them while waiting for parents to show up? Melton said.

Suppose no parents can be found? Who will supervise the kids until they are found? he said.

Programs that help kids to stay in school need to be part of any community’s response to youth gangs, Melton said.

“You have to build a program before you can magically say, ‘Let’s have a curfew,’” said Mary Butler, the county’s chief probation officer. “The gang issue is so big you need the whole community involved.”

As a practical matter, most jurisdictions don’t have curfews because they have no place to put violators, Butler said.

When juveniles commit crimes, a curfew is typically part of their probation agreement, Butler said. Some 500 juveniles in Napa County are on probation, she said.

“I absolutely think there is a value to giving kids curfews, especially with substance abuse issues,” Butler said.

As a practical matter, police are able to stop and question anyone who appears suspicious late at night, said Police Sgt. Terry Gonsalves, the city’s youth services officer.

These “consensual encounters” constitute a “loose curfew” of sorts, said Gonsalves, who thinks a more rigorous curfew would be a good crime-fighting tool. “If we had a place to take these kids, we’d be way ahead,” he said.

Monez feels the same way. Curfews are “a tool when the gang stuff acts up,” he said.

Sheriff Doug Koford likes the idea of bringing the community into the discussion of curfews and other ways of dealing with at-risk kids.

“I’m in favor of anything that makes the community and kids safer,” Koford said. But when it comes to a curfew and the enforcement issues that it creates, “you have to be careful what you wish for,” he said.

“We have to make sure we’re not penalizing the kids out there doing good,” Koford said. He once had a teenage son who once worked a job that got out late at night, he said.

If parents were more responsible and knew where their kids were, curfews wouldn’t be a subject for debate, van Gorder said.

Growing up in Sebastopol, van Gorder said his mother made him be home by 10 p.m. until he turned 18. Four week prior to his 18th birthday, he stayed out later without telling her.

“She called the police on me,” he said.