Do Curfews Keep Teens Out Of Trouble

No parent wants to see their kid coming home at four in the morning, every parent relates the time their child comes home at with whether they are correlated in an even that could have a negative occurrence. Teenage years revolve around finding one’s self, outlook on the future, and at times participating in events that consider them to seem cool. Also, can be a form of acting rebellious, I am in high school and without seeing statistics to back up my arguments I have first-hand experience that curfews lead teens to stay out of trouble. When I refer to curfews I am referring to state laws, not their parents giving teenagers a certain time to come home because those times vary among different adults.
The law setting curfews for the youth is

For example, typical curfews require that teenagers under 17 years stay out of the streets starting from 11:00 p.m. or midnight. This is believed to protect them from crimes committed after nightfall, as well as from violating the law, and there exist serious evidence in favor of this conviction. For example, when New Orleans enabled a dusk-till-dawn curfew in 1994, the rates of juvenile crime were reported to fall more than 20 percent. To go along with that statistic it also shows, even more impressive results were recorded in Dallas, which reported a 30 percent decrease in violent juvenile crime, and a 21 percent decrease in the overall rates of crime committed by young people. Crime rate among teens is proven to go down when curfews are enforced within them.
Jane Jacobs, a well-known urban theorist, wrote in 1961, “A well-used street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted street is apt to be unsafe.” This points to one problem with juvenile curfews: by convincing people (both juveniles and their caregivers) to go home earlier, they clear the streets of bystanders and witnesses whose mere presence could deter crime. It’s possible, then, that juvenile curfews make streets less safe, not more. The real question now is which effect is larger in

Doleac and Jillian Carr tested the effect of juvenile curfews on gun violence in Washington D.C by law, the weekday curfew time in D.C changes from midnight to 11:00 p.m. on September 1st, and back to midnight on July 1st, which follows the school year. Their study suggest that juvenile curfews increase gun violence, and therefor impose a cost on society by decreasing public safety. This doesn’t mean that curfews don’t have some positive effects. It’s possible that juvenile curfews reduce other types of crime, for example minor offenses such as vandalism. To the extent that those types of offenses are a concern, and if they are reduced more than gun violence is increased, then local jurisdictions might find juvenile curfews worthwhile. Making progress on the big criminal justice goals will often require difficult tradeoffs. In this case the decision might be easy. We could make our streets safer simply by repealing juvenile curfew laws. I believe a curfew develops values within a teen. It instills responsibility and awareness amongst teenagers. Like if a teen values the curfew law that mean he/she understands the importance of it and it’s effect on