The headlines are depressingly familiar: Crime is up in the big cities, even as their leaders insist, “There is no crime crisis.”

Sadly, though, the numbers say otherwise in one Democrat stronghold after another.

Chicago is one such example — as our Emmy Griffin described this past spring — but at least someone there is trying to think outside the box for solutions. Perhaps, in the spirit of trying to stem the flow of businesses leaving and young black men (along with innocent bystanders) dying in one gang-related shooting after another, a Chicago group has made the following request of the city’s thugs: “protect the youth … no sliding when the sun is out.”

For those not hip to the slang: Don’t go looking for a fight or to settle a score during daylight hours. Wait for the dark of night.

The moronic idea, from an advocacy group called Native Sons, spread quickly once it was shared by Chicago City Alderman Maria Hadden, making people think it was an actual legal proposal with her imprimatur. However, Hadden was just broadcasting the idea in her constituent newsletter.

Native Sons cofounder Tatiana Atkins described it this way: “We have to start somewhere. Our goal is to approach our city’s gun violence problem strategically and not all at once. Things didn’t become this way overnight, and change won’t happen overnight.”

But, according to the plan, a lot of shootings will happen overnight. “If people know that after a certain hour,” Atkins added, “the likelihood of them being shot by an unknown and unprovoked assailant are at a higher risk, they will be less likely to be out and about, and they may become more proactive with the supervision of their children.”

And while she describes the inverse curfew idea as one that has had “more positive feedback than negative” from the gang members she knows, it seems there’s already a program in place to approach the city’s violence problem — one that works 24 hours a day: the police. Unfortunately, the Chicago Police Department has nowhere near enough manpower to do the job, and the city’s law-abiding citizens are discouraged from protecting themselves thanks to the city’s draconian gun laws. (Given the city’s rampant corruption, though, it’s a sure bet that certain connected people have made arrangements for their own protection.)

However, it’s worth pointing out that Atkins has some solid analysis (note: sarcasm alert) of the problem. “Not everyone is willing to drop their beef,” she said. “If you aren’t mentally and emotionally equipped to solve disputes in a healthy manner, if you can’t help but harm each other, do so in a capacity in which children, elderly, and those not involved in high-risk activities are less likely to be affected.”

Of course, many young Chicagoans lack that mental and emotional equipment because they come from broken families, with parents often lost to violence, prison, or addiction. Thus, the kids are left to fend for themselves. Sadly, gangs have become the perverted family unit for many who are involved in the shootings, whether perpetrator or victim.

Rather than try to enforce an artificial curfew, perhaps the change Chicago — and our country at large — needs is a cultural one, stressing that the present father is cool, and the girl who waits until she’s married to have children is the role model.

Such a change, it seems, would go a long way toward protecting Chicago’s kids.