St. Louis Mall Sees Crime Drop After Kids Ban

Crime is a problem faced by parents and politicians, schools and shopping centers. When officials at the Galleria Mall in St. Louis announced that they would be instituting a ban on unsupervised kids after 3pm on Fridays and Saturdays, the move was met with support by some and criticism by others. But after one month in action, the results are unquestionable. The Galleria Mall has seen a twenty-five percent drop in incident reports and intervention calls made to the local authorities in the six weeks since the plan was put in place.

In cities with St. Louis and Memphis, juvenile crime is a perplexing problem. With questions of community and race being assailed, retail store owners and mall executives face the difficult decision of tackling a problem that is bigger than theirs solely. St. Louis has long been infamously known as the most dangerous city in America. With over 4,100 violent crimes and almost 200 rapes, crime is a priority. When the Galleria Mall experienced almost 25 fights happen simultaneously, mall officials knew something had to be done.

This in the face of the economic impact teen shopping has on an economy. There are over 33.5 million teenagers in the US today. That group spent close to $180 billion in 2006 alone. While violent crime is perpetrated in various age groups and demographics, a recent Gallup poll suggested that over 61% of people said they avoid malls with a concentration of crime or fighting. In the Galleria Mall fight where nine people were arrested, five of those taken into custody were under the age of 19 with the youngest being 13.

With the mall melee stemming from an incident that happened at a local community center, mall officials were almost forced to institute some kind of policy that put in some controls in the face of public safety concerns. In a policy called the Parental Guidance Required Program, anyone under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult after 3 o'clock on the two busiest shopping days of the week, Friday and Saturday.

Since the Parental Guidance Required Program was instituted at the Galleria Mall in St. Louis, officials state that as of August 1, 2007, Richmond Heights Police saw a drop in calls from 441 to 324. Those calls led to an incident report from 173 to 136, and the number of felony arrests from seven to two. With this, the first five weeks or so of the policy being in place, such statistical gains speak volumes for the potential of the plan being implemented more broadly. The world's largest mall, the Mall of America outside of Minneapolis has a similar policy already in place.

The move made by the Mall of America and the Galleria Mall in St. Louis has raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union. The rights group is fighting to develop a policy that would protect the rights of teens in the face of their concerns for rights of young people based on potential biases of race relations, parental responsibilities, and civil liberties. The ACLU believes that mall officials are instituting the policies to curb the number of minorities at the mall at night. Additionally, they are raising issues with malls being a source of community gathering and should not be restrictive of kids of any age, whether supervised or not.

Officials at the Mall of America are reemphasizing their stance after a 10-year old boy was left for an entire day at the mall by his mother. Their Parental Escort Policy stipulates that any child under the age of 16 must be accompanies by an adult over the age of 21 after 4pm on Fridays and Saturdays. After their policy was put into place the number of juvenile crimes went down from 30 to 2 in a calendar year.

With the malls being shut off, communities must develop new places for juveniles to frequent on Fridays and Saturdays. Malls were never constructed to be babysitters. And Galleria Mall in St. Louis and the Mall of America outside of Minneapolis have proved it worthwhile to their customers.