THE police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.

“We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims,” insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.

Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a 24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.

In Hartford, the center of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.

But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.

“I am still traumatized,” says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. “I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn’t believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head.”

Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year. In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.

While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11 p.m. curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.

It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group “opposes juvenile curfews because they’re essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people,” said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. “Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few.”

Residents of Connecticut’s north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. “We need to keep the young people off the streets,” says Ms. Johnson on the front steps of her home. “And the parents need help. The law is the law.” Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the mayor’s decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. “This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family.”

“We’ll see if it works,” says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 percent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers.

More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a “band-aid” that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police.