A Southern California mall will require unaccompanied minors to wear lanyards with their parent’s contact information after three separate fights broke out on Sunday.
“We would like to remind you that the mall security is not a babysitting service, and it is the responsibility of parents to raise their children to be respectful to others and to compose themselves accordingly when out in public,” according to a statement from the Moreno Valley Mall.
The brawls were related to an uptick in guests, as the movie theater was selling $4 tickets in recognition of National Cinema Day, the Press-Enterprise reported.
Mall security called for backup from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which operates a police station in the mall.
“In light of today’s events, we will be forced to go back to the drawing board with regard to unattended youth at our property,” the statement read.
The mall will require all youth to wear lanyards with their first and last name and parent’s contact information after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and all day on the weekends.
This is not the only mall in California that dealt with fights this past weekend. A gun was fired at Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, where 1,000 minors brawled, and one minor was stabbed during a fight involving 200 youth at a shopping center in Emeryville in the Bay area.
Unfortunately, youth violence has been on the rise since the pandemic lockdowns, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Police, prosecutors and community groups attribute much of the youth violence to broad disruptions that started with the pandemic and lockdowns. Schools shut down, depriving students of structure in daily life, as did services for troubled children. Increased stress compounded a swelling mental-health crisis. Social-media conflicts increasingly turned deadly.
Crimes involving the youth were on the decline between 2000 and 2010, with the number of minors in detention facilities dropping by 77 percent, Breitbart News reported.