The Criminalization of Black DC Youth through Juvenile Curfews Prompts a Community Call to Action

Pan-African Community Action issues a call to rally against extended curfews subtextually targeting Black children in the District.

April 10, 2026 — Under the DC Juvenile Curfew Second Emergency Amendment Act of 2025, curfew zones were implemented late last year to address a heightened presence of young people around popular DC rendezvous, sparking city-wide debate. The barring of children under the age of 18 from five metropolitan zones between the hours of 11pm and 6am, motivated by an inaccurate framework of juvenile chaos, was enacted by former Mayor, Muriel Bowser and enforced by the former DC Chief of Police, Pamela A. Smith. After Smith stepped down from her duties this past December, the mechanisms of this act extended into the new year and has been upheld by interim Chief of Police, Jeffery Carroll. In some areas, on certain days, curfew restrictions start as early at 8 pm. 

Now, with the extension expiring in mid-April, Pan-African Community Action (PACA)  is calling for the community to stand against the persecution of children through the restriction of their movement and self-determination. 

PACA will be holding a rally, Saturday, April 11th, in Navy Yard, a site of major contention between DC youth, transplanted residents, and the National Guard. The rally starts at 5:30pm and concludes at 7:30pm. 

Disillusionment, the absence of youth outlets, and mass hysteria tied to the stereotyping of Black minors motivates a further, and stricter, extension of curfew zones until September of 2026. 

Says PACA member, Briana, “When the system abandons them [Black youth], they create their own spaces to be seen, heard, and together.”

An increase in gentrification of DC neighborhoods, as seen in the booming development of Navy Yard, has exacerbated the conflict between new residents and a class of dispossessed, Black Washingtonians. The organization realizes that a majority of the youth targeted by the Act are children of Black, working-class families and have been persecuted, not to enhance public safety, but to restrain the youth’s autonomy and to reinforce racialized zones of exclusion. The militarized authoritative presence of the National Guard to dissuade social gatherings of nine or more minors invokes similar impositions of the “Black Codes” of the mid-19th Century. 

As witnessed by a Navy Yard resident, “Before you knew it, there were 20 National Guard [members], a lot of MPD [Metropolitan Police Department] and Metro Police pushing them to one way. Kids were running [in] one direction to another, then you would hear them scaring them with tasers.” 

Given that PACA will allow gatherers and community members to speak and share whatever perspectives they may have, in a locale tied to hot-button issues, the possibility for highly charged, contending views seems likely. 

About Pan-African Community Action (PACA):

Emerging in November of 2015 in direct response to the killing of 27 year-old Alonzo Smith by DC Special Police, Pan African Community Action is a grassroots group of African/Black people organizing for community-based power. This organization, based in Washington, D.C., works to actualize this through political education and participatory programs of action.

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