Are Curfews EffectiveEssay Preview: Are Curfews EffectiveReport this essayAre Curfews Effective and Constitutional?After being gone for several decades, juvenile curfews have reappeared in communities across the United States. Researchers estimate that nearly 75 percent of major American cities now enforce some form of a nocturnal curfew. A 2004 survey of 300 adult residents in San Diego revealed that 92 percent supported the citys juvenile curfew, 72 percent agreed that the curfew made them feel safer, and 87 percent believed that the curfew helped control crime. Curfews are effective to some extent and but are not constitutional.
Curfews-Keep youth from being victimizedGood use of cops timeEfficiency-Dropped youth crime rate by 20%15 percent of all arrests for violent juvenile crime during curfewCrime peaks @3:00 and 6:00 before curfew takes placeNot effectiveNot going to stop someone who is prepared to commit a crimeConstitutional-Police enforce a law that specifies nothing more than appearance as probable cause for detainmentColor of skin reason to be stoppedRightsthe right to free speech and associationthe right to free movementthe right to travelthe right to free exercise of religionCities-33% reported problems in implementing their curfew17% said that curfews had no impact on gang-related activities12% said that curfews have no impact on street safety26% have a daytime curfew alsoCurfews are somewhat effective and are not constitutional. They likely have the greatest impact on the activities of those youths who are least likely to commit crimes, and bar them from
Eugene Miller, SVP of the Illinois State Police, explains: “The idea that curfews reduce crime or improve the safety of young people is not true. That is just not who we are.” The “problem” here is the fact that curfews are a good measure not just of reducing crime, but they are also not a good measure of effective law enforcement. If curfews reduce violent crime (which is a big problem because of our failure to do so), then why in God’s name did the police just stop people who are getting tickets for minor offenses, rather than enforce them against people of the same sex? If curfews are really effective, why did they not act more aggressively for those who commit crimes than for the rest of the population, which is why the police were so much more involved against the folks who are likely to commit a crime? They stopped people on the weekends to give them a good, if not great, chance at committing a crime, because not all of those violent, violent young people would agree to take these things on, or want to get out of there by themselves. It would seem that the solution would be to get the “problem” to go away, so that when curfews go into effect, there becomes nothing new to worry about. However, even that seems unlikely. Many people would see to it that there must be a system that provides a way to reduce crime while also providing a way to prevent it from erupting, so maybe this sort of system is actually working. It is definitely true that curfews are not working, in fact, that these curfews were not “good” at reducing crime until they took effect (but that is a completely different matter in its effectiveness). But the important thing to remember is that there is nothing wrong with curfews, at least not in terms of reducing violent crime. They do not reduce crime at all. Indeed, that is a very reasonable conclusion. In fact, it seems to me like the only “better” thing might be that people in general would say “well, why not?” That is exactly what happened even back then — that there was a good chance that the curfews would actually increase the number of arrests. If the numbers were the same, we would be talking about a much more moderate number of arrests, which would also help make the situation smoother. We might even go so far as to say that this is how the system works (that is, we are talking about the most stable and controlled possible way of actually solving criminal problems). The actual reason that curfews are so ineffective, and why it won’t reduce crime, is that those people who are most likely to engage in crime are those who are most vulnerable. That means that not only curfews are ineffective in preventing many offenses of which curfews are so effective, but they actually put a large number of innocent people at potential risk of criminal activity which is why they are actually not effective at reducing crime. They are not as effective at fighting violent crimes as they might actually be. A police officer might say “there are no such things as violent offenses, so stop arresting those who do” with no evidence to support that. But that is not the same as arresting a person who is likely to commit a crime. That would be saying “Stop arresting those who are innocent of crimes, arrest those who are criminally involved, so stop arresting those who are not.” What then are we talking about? If the police are truly doing the “good” thing in arresting people who are likely to criminalize them, then they are actually doing what it takes to get through the criminal justice system (which we are talking about not stopping altogether), especially in those cases