A CURFEW FOR JACKSON

A Jackson resident's complaint about loud, rowdy teen-agers in her neighborhood on a recent summer night has the Jackson Board of Aldermen thinking about adopting a citywide juvenile curfew.

It would be a good idea to do so -- not because youths are running wild in town at night but because police would be equipped with an ordinance to get off the streets the few young people who are out late at night for no good reason. They are the ones who could end up in trouble before the night is over.

Concerns that a curfew would impose unnecessary hardships on young people who must be out late to go to work, to get home after work or to attend school and church functions should be put to rest. A curfew simply is a tool used by police to get young people who shouldn't be out late at night off the streets. And that is how it should be.