Backyard BBQs, splashing in the pool, and family vacations often come to mind when picturing summer. But for youth, the months of no school and naturally less oversight are also the most dangerous.
A 17-year investigation found juvenile crimes increased in June, July, and August, according to a 2014 report by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Specifically, burglary and domestic violence increased by 11 percent, while household larceny and motor vehicle theft rates increased by eight percent and nine percent, respectively.
In June, July, and August of 2021, an average of 273 children aged 0-19 died from a firearm-related homicide per month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average was just under 249 deaths per month over the remaining nine months.
To help combat the uptick in crime and violence, cities such as Baltimore have implemented or started enforcing teen curfews during the summer months. Other cities, like Chicago, have year-round teen curfews, citing a need to reduce violence during the entire school year.
At the other end, states like Texas have banned teen curfews, arguing that the evidence shows the restrictions don’t impact crime and may be a violation of parents’ rights and teens’ 1st and 14th Amendment rights.
Teen Curfews
In April, two teens were shot during a large gathering at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. In response, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott stated in a press release that the city would implement a teen curfew.“Our young people are Baltimore’s future, and we must devote our resources, time, and energy into making sure that they have the opportunities they deserve to grow and develop into their best selves,” he said.
Baltimore’s city curfew ran from May 26 to Sept. 3. Anyone aged 13 and under out after 9 p.m. or aged and 14 to 16 out after 11 p.m., were subject to a warning for a first-time offense. Third offenses and beyond were subject to a $500 fine or community service for a parent or guardian.
The Baltimore City Council didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Chicago’s year-round curfew applies to children 17 and under and requires them to be escorted by an adult at least 21 years or older if they’re out past 10 p.m.
In April, when nine adults and six minors were arrested for “reckless and disruptive behavior” during a gathering of hundreds of people near Millennium Park in Chicago, activists and business owners demanded then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot enforce her curfew.
Ms. Lightfoot had implemented the curfew following a teen shooting in May 2022, saying at the time, “As a city, we must ensure that our young people have safe spaces to congregate and that in those spaces, they are peaceful and actually safe.”
The Chicago City Council didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment. The Chicago Police Department pointed The Epoch Times to Ms. Lightfoot’s press release when asked how teen curfews have helped with crime in Chicago.
Curfews and Civil Rights
Chicago and Baltimore aren’t the only cities to use curfews to combat youth-related crime. The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), the nation’s largest youth-led civil rights organization, reports that there are over 400 “towns, cities, counties, and states where it is illegal for young people to be outside of their homes at certain times of the day.”“Over the past few years, we’ve definitely seen a rise in this idea that minors can’t decide for themselves, and even that parents can’t decide for themselves and for their kids what’s best,” Nikos Mohammadi, NYRA’s communications director, told The Epoch Times.
“What curfew laws do is essentially take the power out of the hands of parents and give it over to the government.”
Stephen Howsley, a public policy analyst for Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), an advocacy group that worked to ban teen curfews in Texas, agrees.
“Our whole idea behind the juvenile curfew prohibition is we don’t believe that children should be cited, or should have to enter the judicial system, for something that their parents gave them permission to do,” Mr. Howsley told The Epoch Times.
“If there’s not an actual crime being committed—such as vandalism or theft or something like that—then just being out and moving between cities, counties, or even within your neighborhood, should not be considered a crime.”
Attorneys have successfully argued in court that teen curfews violate both the 1st and the 14th Amendments.
In Ramos v. Town of Vernon, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that a Connecticut town’s curfew violated the “right to travel” under the 14th Amendment. A court agreed, stating, “This right to free movement is a vital component of life in an open society, both for juveniles and adults.”
In Jiovon Anonymous and Thomas Anonymous v. City of Rochester, the New York ACLU argued that Rochester’s curfew violated the First Amendment right to “peaceably assemble” and infringed on parent’s rights to “direct the upbringing of their children.”
The court agreed and ruled that Rochester’s curfew violated the federal and New York State Constitutions.
Other courts have sided with the city or state in other rulings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against the ACLU when it challenged the constitutionality of a juvenile curfew enacted in Dallas, Texas.
“Plaintiffs contended that the curfew ordinance violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, the right of association, and the right of privacy,” and a district court agreed, the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs reports.
But when the City of Dallas appealed, the circuit court reversed the decision.
“Ideally, I would love to have a Supreme Court ruling that deems youth curfews unconstitutional,” Mr. Mohammadi said. “But until that happens, curfews could be deemed illegal on the state level. … What Texas has done is a great policy initiative, and I want to see other states do the same.”
Lack of Crime Reduction
On Sept. 1, a new law essentially banning teen curfews went into effect in Texas.The bill, House Bill 1819, was signed by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 9 and received overwhelming bipartisan support, with the authors of the bill citing research that concluded, “ juvenile curfew ordinances are an ineffective way to reduce crime and often lead to negative outcomes for youth in school and future interactions with the justice system.”
During testimony, Texas Appleseed, a data-driven advocacy group that worked with THSC to help pass the legislation, reported that both Austin and Waco, Texas, eliminated their teen curfews, which had been in effect since the 1990s. Austin eliminated its curfew in 2017, and Waco eliminated its curfew in 2014. The result was, “Austin saw a 21 percent decrease in juvenile victimization in one year, and Waco has seen no increase in juvenile citation or arrest.”
But after the bill passed, Lt. Krystal Baker with the Copperas Cove Police Department told the Killeen Daily Herald, “Not having a curfew ordinance to enforce may have a negative impact on our ability to prevent minors from committing additional crimes during midnight hours and could cause an increase in crime.
“Curfews have played a significant role in deterring criminal activity such as vandalism, theft, drug and alcohol-related offenses, just to name a few, particularly during late-night hours when individuals may be more vulnerable to dangerous situations.”
Both Mr. Howsley and Mr. Mohammadi disagree.
“We haven’t seen a direct correlation between a decrease in juvenile crime and these ordinances being put in place,” Mr. Howsley said. “And we should have plenty of data if that’s the case. These have been in place for years now, and we’ve seen an increase in students getting cited for [curfew violations] that we would argue should not even be considered crimes.”
Mr. Mohammadi added, “Curfews are built on a false assumption of juvenile delinquency—that if you leave teenagers out at night, they’re going to commit crimes and do other horrible things—which is not grounded in evidence.
“Evidence suggests that most youth crime peaks earlier rather than later in the day, and also that most crime isn’t committed by youth. So, there are these laws that are built on stereotypes rather than actual evidence. And I think that’s problematic and discriminatory.”
According to the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, violent crimes by youth peak at 3 p.m. during the school days and then sharply decline. For non-school days, violent crime peaks between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. and declines after 9 p.m.
The DOJ found that only 13 percent of violent crime committed by youth occurs during the “standard juvenile curfew hours” of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (inclusive of both school and non-school days).
“Consequently, efforts to reduce offending by youth after school would appear to have greater potential to decrease a community’s violent crime rate than curfews.”
The Brookings Institution, a non-partisan research group, found that when the District of Columbia passed its teen curfew, there was a rise in crime, not a decrease. “We find that, contrary to its goal of improving public safety, D.C.’s juvenile curfew increases the number of gunfire incidents by 150 percent” during the time examined, it reported.
A Better Way
Mr. Howsley said that introducing a child to the criminal justice system earlier in life can set them up for future run-ins.“There’s plenty of evidence regarding the age that a child comes into contact with police or the judicial system [for the first time] and what that means for the rest of their life,” he said.
“And as soon as you start introducing socio-economic demographics and start looking at some of those patterns, that gets even more disturbing.”
Instead of relying on teen curfews, Mr. Howsley said cities and states would do better to invest in after-school programs and strengthen the relationship between the community and the police.
“We asked youth what could be done to help them if they were seemingly in a situation that could lead to trouble instead of just arresting them or citing them or giving them a ticket,” he said.
Mr. Howsley said THSC worked with the Austin Police Department to replace curfew violations with the “police becoming a safe place,” where teens could get free rides home and turn to officers when “they found themselves in difficult situations.”
“Austin also has safe places you can go within the community to get rides and resources. It provided youth with other options, rather than just a citation or an arrest,” he said.
The rationale behind those initiatives, according to Mr. Howsley, was to help prevent crime from happening instead of assuming a crime would occur just because someone was out without supervision.
