Teenagers today, and a lot of adults as well, can't spell worth a nickel.

All may have concluded that the proper assembly of words is a little dated (sentence construction, the art thereof, vanished years ago), lost in the blips and fweeps of surfing the Web and stirring up e-mail, during which exercises nothing resembling an English word is ever put to use.

But all things alphabetical have not been lost, and you may be pretty confident that the dimmest among them knows how to spell "police state" and "curfew."

If not, it is time to learn, for the one, curfew, looms over the Escondido part of North County right now, and it will surely lead to the other as night follows day.

Curfews beget police states, which already have a strong foothold in cities that gave the green light to red-light cameras that watch for dastardly criminals at intersections.

The cops in Escondido say they are working up a plan to establish a daytime curfew for people under 18 years of age. That presumably would include children of elementary-school age. But teenagers are the targets, and you can take that to the bank, assuming some adolescent truant is not knocking the place over.

What the cops hope to do is ask the Escondido City Council in June for an ordinance making it unlawful for youngsters to be on the streets from 8 or 8:30 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon. A teenager on the street! Grab that kid! We can't have them on the street!

The cops have refused to give other curfew details to reporters such as David Fried of the North County Times. They have instead skipped fast forward to make the case for the curfew's necessity.

As in, right now all they can do when they spot a youngster on the street who, darn it all anyway, belongs in school, is to pick the miscreant up and cart him back to school.

As in, they'd like instead to have the power to pick the kid up, write a "citation," notify parents, and perhaps get the kid into a "diversion" program. Maybe, instead of paying fines or getting punished as lawbreakers do, get these kids into some sort of community service.

The police have said that without such an ordinance they are "helpless." Said one police official: "Studies have shown that kids who aren't in school when they should be are going either to become victims of crime or take part in criminal activity." One or the other.

Almost without exception, police jurisdictions from time to time call for more authority. They regard the laws that keep them in check as oppressive, foolish, handcuffing. They say, in essence: Set us free and we'll clean up the mess and we'll save the children.

It is not productive to be too critical of cops when they say such things, because —— in a terribly narrow way —— they make sense. In self-interest, a police department would like a police state. A plumber would like a plumbers' state, and a newspaper columnists' state would be paradise, as is widely known.

Picking kids up just because they're there is an absurd idea. Why not pick up red people and make them stay on the beach? What about old people —— how did they get out of the home? There's an argument one could make that ugly people have no business on the streets, ever, because they discourage tourism. And politicians on the loose are up to no good at all.

We do not snatch such people off the streets because we live where it is free. If you're red or old or ugly, or if you're a kid, you have the right to be on any street in the bright daylight, and it is an affront to the notion of freedom that a cop might be given the go-ahead to pick you up because some thoughtless ordinance declares that you belong somewhere else.

Truancy is not a major crime. It is not admirable, either; no one will argue that, not even kids.

But trampling on rights is a major crime. Establishing curfews is a major crime. Maybe in June the City Council ought to consider not this planned ordinance but one reaffirming ideas of freedom to walk around. And keep police states at bay.

Contact John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647, or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.