Going Outside Isn’t a Crime: Youth Fight Curfew During School Hours

The San Juan Capistrano City Council in Southern California is considering a draconian way to curb crime: a daytime curfew during school hours.

Not only does this send a chilling message about the value of young people, it's also ineffective, say Mark Lamb and Jonathan Huynh, high school students and leaders of the National Youth Rights Association - Los Angeles. They're urging other young people in the state to tell Council members that punishing youth for being young just doesn't make sense.

The council recently considered a complete overhaul of their youth curfew laws. When they couldn't agree on a proposal that combined a daytime curfew with a 10 p.m. curfew, they told city staff to go back to the drawing board. They're still considering curfews, but haven't made up their minds.

Many of the council members expressed various concerns with aspects of the proposal. Some members thought the 10 p.m. start time was too early, others were concerned that the cost of administering the fines might be too high, while others wanted to see more statistics on truancy rates.

These are valid concerns. However, none of them expressed the concern that curfews don’t work.

Youth curfews are often cited by policymakers as effective tools for reducing youth crime and solving other social ills. This claim is often repeated despite the fact that there is no comprehensive study that proves youth curfews are effective.

Some make a "common sense argument" to support curfews. But while there is no comprehensive evidence showing that curfews work, there is a mountain of evidence showing that they don’t. This paper from Western Criminology Review used statistics from the California Department of  Justice to conclude, “There is no support for the hypothesis that jurisdictions with curfews experience lower crime levels, accelerated youth crime reduction, or lower rates of juvenile violent death than jurisdictions without curfews.”

The National Youth Rights Association, my organization, is one of the few national organizations to focus on the youth curfew issue. Simply being outside should not be a crime for anyone. We have overturned curfews in dozens of communities and worked with a number of policymakers to show them the realities of instituting a youth curfew. We cannot be everywhere at once and often community leaders are more concerned with appeasing an older constituency than they are with implementing policies that actually work.

Making crimes out of harmless activities like walking down the street won’t keep anyone safe. Join youth rights activists in calling for a better solution.

Photo credit: Daniel Lobo via Flickr