In response to growing public concern about crime, cities and counties across the United States are returning to a familiar remedy: curfews for young people.
Proponents argue that curfews reduce crime and protect youth by keeping them off the streets. But research suggests curfews are ineffective. Some juvenile justice attorneys and experts warn of unintended consequences, such as increased racial discrimination and strained relations between police and youth.
More than a dozen cities and counties have reinstated or enforced youth curfews this year, including Washington, DC; Memphis, Tennessee; New Smyrna Beach, Florida; Sea Isle City, New Jersey; and Fulton County, Georgia. Philadelphia and Chicago made their curfews enduring last year.
Vicksburg, Mississippi, recently reinstated its curfew after a shooting in January left a 13-year-old dead and two others injured. The city also implemented a community policing program and allocated $200,000 for a center where children and their families can receive mentoring, tutoring and mental health support.
“When you limit the opportunity for youth to be outside at 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., you limit and control that exposure and then bring it back where it belongs — the home,” Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. told Stateline. “I’m a firm believer that you can’t be too punitive. … You have to approach it from a holistic perspective and that means involving the family, the school and the community.”
Both he and Police Chief Penny Jones said crime rates in the community have dropped since the curfew began.
“Children will employ it [sic] “If you fight back, it will become the norm. We just want to make sure our youth are safe,” Jones wrote in an email.
However, some elected officials went in the other direction. In June, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed a law nationwide ban to curfews that both cities and counties are prohibited from implementing. The ban will come into force in September.
Texas Republican Rep. David Cook, who authored the bill, said he hopes that banning curfews statewide will “improve relationships between youth and law enforcement.” Cook also expressed concerns that curfews could violate constitutional rights.
“We can do a lot as a state to improve the juvenile justice system,” Cook said in an interview with Stateline. “The more community-based programs we have, the better able youth are to change their behavior and build a better future for themselves.”
The District of Columbia is one of the most recent cities to implement a youth curfew. The city’s curfew affects seven specific areas and prohibits anyone under the age of 17 from being outdoors after 11 p.m. on weekdays and after midnight on weekends. Minors who violate the curfew are taken to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, where they are reunited with their families and receive rehabilitation services and support.
“Our goal is not to arrest our young people, but we want to ensure the safety of our youth here in the District of Columbia,” said Pamela Smith, the city’s police chief, during a press conference this month.
Some cities, including Baltimore And Atlantaare also changing how they handle curfews – they have chosen to reduce or eliminate fines and other penalties and instead offer educational and community-based programs such as counseling, mentoring and recreational activities for violators. In other jurisdictions, parents and guardians can still be punished with fines or even jail if their children violate curfews.
Are curfews effective?
In 1996, President Bill Clinton called on cities and municipalities to impose night-time curfews on young people. Today, more than 400 cities and counties have issued curfews for young people, according to the National Association for Youth Rights.
But curfews for young people in the US are “ineffective in reducing crime and victimization,” a review Summary of results from 12 studies published in 2016 by the Campbell Collaboration, an international social science research network. The research also found a slight raise in crime during curfew and no effects outside of curfew.
A Article published in 2014 by the Social Science Research Network The impact of youth curfews in the District of Columbia on gun violence was measured by analyzing ShotSpotter data from January 2006 to June 2013. The authors found that the number of shootings increased by 150% during curfews. The authors also suggested that curfews keep bystanders and witnesses off the streets, reducing their deterrent effect on crime.
However, some local officials said that enforcing the curfew had led to a decrease in crime in their jurisdiction.
In Prince George’s County, Maryland, where local authorities imposed a youth curfew last year, they reported a 20% drop in overall crime in the first month of the curfew.
We find that youth crime is lowest in communities with access to appropriate resources, and this is no coincidence.
– Dafna Gozani, senior lawyer at the National Center for Youth
Experts also fear that curfews will disproportionately affect young people with gloomy skin.
Curfews for youth could lead to increased discrimination based on race, says William Carbone, lecturer and executive director of the Tow Youth Justice Institute at the University of New Haven.
“I don’t have a lot of faith in curfews at all,” Carbone said in an interview with Stateline. “When you implement a measure like curfews, there’s a risk that the relationship between youth and police will deteriorate and that profiling will occur. … That’s just one of the areas where children of color are disproportionately disadvantaged.”
When young people stay close to home, the number of juvenile arrests decreases
Carbone said curfews could also cause crime to shift from one area to another because “kids don’t respect geographic boundaries.”
“If there is a curfew in a place, [minors] could be moved to another location. That doesn’t stop crime,” Carbone said.
Curfews are more likely to harm youth of color because of existing inequalities in how they interact with police, Candice Jones, president and CEO of the Public Welfare Foundation, a justice advocacy group, wrote in an email.
“They could be doing something legitimate – coming home late from a game or studying at a friend’s house – but now a curfew has led to them coming into contact with the police, which we know can be especially dangerous for black and brown youth.”
At least 11,680 children under the age of 17 were arrested for curfew violations or loitering in 2020, according to statistics from the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Federal data show that for decades, Black minors have been arrested for curfew violations and loitering at two to three times the rate of their white peers. The overall juvenile arrest rate, which includes all crimes, reached its peak in 1996 and has declined since then.
Alternative solutions to juvenile delinquency
Some opponents of the lockdown point to approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of talk therapy that helps identify and change thought patterns, as well as tailored drug or psychotherapy programs, as more effective strategies, says Carbone.
“Treatment and intervention, as well as as little contact with police and courts as possible, are very important elements in the prevention of juvenile delinquency,” Carbone said.
Carbone emphasized that diversion – approaches that keep young people away from the juvenile justice system – is a proactive measure to combat and prevent juvenile delinquency.
“It’s very powerful for young people when they walk into a courtroom and the person on the bench, the one wearing the long black robe, for example, hits them with a gavel and says, ‘I find you delinquent.’ Kids tend to internalize that and then live by it,” Carbone said.
To counteract this, advocates suggest that communities should prioritize comprehensive, year-round programs that enable children to participate in sports, cultural, artistic and other social activities.
In Maryland, the Department of Juvenile Services launched the Safe Summer initiative in June, which aims to direct additional resources to counties struggling with higher rates of youth violence and create employment opportunities for youth. Connecticut lawmakers a law passed The program expands diversion programs in the state and encourages police to refer children to juvenile court rather than taking them to court.
In Tacoma, Washington, city leaders launched the first free summer program for youth, offering recreational activities such as basketball tournaments, video games, art and music.
Instead of fining children and their families for curfew violations, communities should invest in social services and address the root causes of youth crime, says Dafna Gozani, a senior attorney at the National Center for Youth, a nonprofit juvenile justice law firm and advocacy group.
“We see that communities with access to resources have the lowest rates of youth crime, and that’s no coincidence,” Gozani said. “We also see that it’s incredibly expensive to support the correctional system, and that comes at the expense of investing in things like education, health care, pro-social activities – all the things that actually keep kids from coming into the system.”
Axl, a 19-year-old Kentucky resident who asked to be identified only by his first name for privacy reasons, found it extremely valuable to participate in the program run by Youth Advocate Programs, a national nonprofit that provides community-based alternatives to out-of-home placements.
He said the program helped him develop well coping mechanisms, strengthen his communication skills and embrace his transgender identity.
“I had a lot of support in the program and it helped me learn not to be afraid to be who I want to be. It showed me that I can be different and I don’t have to conform to everyone else,” Axl said.
