Excessive Curfew Law On The City Of Des Moines

On Friday morning, October 2, 2015, Two teens invaded a home in Des Moines around 4:30 am. People living in the home say someone busted down the front door and ransacked the home. One person received minor injuries. The Des Moines police officers took two males into custody, one of them is 17 years old. They’re still looking for one more person in connection with the incident (WHO-HD). This invasion was able to happen due to the lack of curfew law in the city of Des Moines. Although, curfews are applied in several Iowa cities including Bettendorf, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Iowa City, Sioux City, Waterloo, and Indianola. Likewise, the city of Des Moines should apply the curfew law from 10 pm to 5 am for teenagers who are 17 years old and under.

Cities that have curfew law experience fewer teens’ crimes and victimization. When Lake County had an issue with teens’ crimes, the police department forced curfews for teens under 16 years old (Courtney). As a result, Lake County Sheriff reported that the number of teen crimes decreased (Courtney). Moreover, a study research for 54 U.S cities with 180,000 or more residents has been done by the University of California shows that youth arrests dropped by 10 percent.

Curfew laws provide greater safety for the residents of the city. A survey was conducted by the U.S. conference of mayors in 1995 stated that 86% of the cities believed that applying the curfew law for the youth helped make their streets safer for their residents (USCM). with more people outside being fatigued or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, curfews can help teenagers stay away from the greater risk that can come as hours gets later states Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D., a psychologist writing for Psychology Today (Hatter).

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...at Boeing. So curfew laws are not meant to place negative limitations on the teenagers’ lives, it’s a tool to help develop them so they can become successful adults.

As shown above, curfew laws can play a very critical role in a teenager’s life. It can assist with keeping the city safer, help them get enough sleep, and help them build their personal skill under a well-structured system routine. A lot of people might find curfew laws for teenagers unconstitutional and contradict the first amendment, so they decide not to abide with it. But by doing so, they are placing more a bigger experience to teenagers who are still working on developing their skills to take on new challenges. After all, Teenagers are the future of our society if we don’t teach, coach, direct, and offer guidance their future will be unstable and unproductive and that will affect the entire nation.