Whenever a community sees a spike in crime, politicians tend to rush towards solutions that look good on paper but are thin in substance. Such might be the path taken by D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams in legislation recently proposed to fight the jump in violent crime in the District.

According to the Post, Williams has convinced the D.C. Council — now on recess until September — to consider two proposals that, he claims, would serve to cut violent crime by 50 percent in the next 30 days. The first proposal would allow him to cut back the city’s curfew for juveniles from midnight to 10 p.m. during the summer months; the second would call for the installation of surveillance cameras in various neighborhoods. The council will debate the measures starting tomorrow, and the votes of nine of the 13 members would be needed for approval.

We’re not terribly convinced that either proposal will do much more than give Williams (and, by extension, mayoral candidate and Williams endorsee Linda Cropp) a political win in what has otherwise been a bad year for him. A stricter curfew and more cameras are knee-jerk reactions to the issue, proposed more for the purpose of making District residents feel safer other than actually being safer. Much like the murder of New York Times journalist David Rosenbaum touched off a serious investigation into the city’s emergency response system, we’d hope that the recent violent crimes would offer Williams and the council the needed political capital and urgency to look more deeply at school reform, programs and jobs for youth, affordable housing, and the growing gap between rich and poor. It stands to notice that neither Williams nor the council seem as interested in addressing this issue as they did the baseball stadium, for which they burned the midnight oil and cut deals like never before.

As the Justice Policy Institute has found, increasing rates of youth unemployment since 2002 have tracked consistently with referrals to the courts. A more strict curfew, more cameras, and more police officers will not solve the problem of crime among District youths and adults — they may put a temporary lid on it, but it could well be the same time next year when we’re once again faced with this same problem. We’re hoping Williams will wake up and show some leadership this time. He’s done so on his many travels abroad, so maybe it’s time he do so here.