Should teenagers be restricted to a curfew? That's a question many parents question themselves. What is my son up? What is my daughter doing? How do I know if they're safe? What time will he/she be home? When following curfews, teens tend to stay out of trouble more because criminal activity or high-risk behaviors is more likely to occur later in the evening when parental supervision is not present. Therefore teenagers need have a curfew, imposing curfews would help keep young teens out of trouble legally, set strict boundaries, and provides safety.
How can a curfew keep my young teenager from doing illegal activities? Having a curfew provides teens with a limited amount of time to commit any criminal offenses.
Recently there has been several incidents that've been discussed on the news about gangs and young teens fighting; although fights are commonly known to most people as using your fist and only your fist, teens today involve weapons which can have very deadly consequences. These gang fights usually occur when policemen are obscure or at late hours in the evening. In some areas in the U.S where curfews are not reinforced community vandalism is present. Vandalism is at an all time high among teens; vandalism includes damaging property, stealing street signs, egging homes or cars, spraying graffiti on public places, ect. In many cities crime rates among teens have declined at substantial amounts. The U.S Conference of Mayors surveyed mayors in 347 cities with curfews and found that 88 percent of the cities found that curfews made their streets safer for residents. While only 72 of the 347 cities had daytime curfews, 100 percent of those cities showed a decrease in truancy and daytime crime. Gang related problems also d...
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...ld you react if you found out they had been a victim of a horrific crime?
Teenagers should definitely have a curfew, imposing curfews will help keep teens out of trouble legally, sets strict boundaries, and provides safety. You should talk to as many people as possible and make them aware of the dangers of not having a curfew. Be a fellow citizen and help your community stop teen crimes and crimes of teens being victims.
Works Cited
Pickett, Theresa. "What Kind of Trouble Can Teens Get in If They Do Not Have a Curfew?" EHow. Demand Media, 18 June 2011. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
"Teen Vandalism |." Middle Earth. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
"Handling Curfews." BYU David O. McKay School of Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Ricks, Delthia. "Study: Texting While Driving Now Leading Cause of Death for Teen Drivers." Newsday. N.p., 8 May 13. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Today, teen curfews are commonplace and supported by voters. Bainbridge observes that according to Jet Magazine’s survey taken in 2011, 75% of the voters were in support of curfew laws (13). Parents arrange for young children to go to bed at an earlier time than teenagers (Psychologytoday.com). Teens receive the privilege to stay up later but this can mean that they will be out on the streets later at night. McKinny indicates that curfews are in place to protect the youth from crimes that may harm them or take the children’s lives (Time.com).
Multiple cities across the country have set curfews for teenagers, making it illegal for teenagers to be on the streets past a given hour. Teenagers are seen breaking the curfew laws in these cities, but many have an adequate excuse as to why they are doing so. I play travel volleyball and my practices go until ten o'clock pm and I do not arrive home until sometimes eleven o'clock pm, this would mean I would be out on the streets illegally if this curfew was set. Setting curfews for teenagers would interfere with after school activities, teen working hours and school assignments. After school activities are a large part of many teenagers' lives, such activities include both school and club sports, clubs, hobbies, etc. Curfews would limit the
They open up the doors to a new discussion that explores the idea of not punishments for crimes they commit, but preventing them before they take place. Staying after school, involved in productive activities seems to help students stay out of trouble. Curfews are imposed in some states, preventing juveniles from being out past a certain time until a time early the next day. These curfews are said to be in place in order to prevent crimes, but there are no statistics to back this up, as there are for the crime rate dropping with kids staying after school. Regardless, these are matters of precaution taken in order to attempt to prevent crimes from happening at the times in which they’d be anticipated to. If things are in place in order to prevent juveniles from committing crimes, the crime rate will drop, and many people will be saved from entering a world unknown to the world that is prison. Stopping juveniles from committing crimes would maybe them cause adults to not commit crimes as well, since in essence, these juveniles will indeed one day be adults. By implementing laws, states and law makers understand that there will always be people that don’t follow them. By stating programs, allowing juveniles a place to reconcile with small mistakes they make, or creating a safe-place where they can seek help from
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.
Imagine a world where there is no standard state-set curfew on every single teenager. Doesn’t that sound like the world we live in? Even though we have a state curfew, barely anyone even acknowledges it. It’s not like you hear about crimes committed by teenagers every single night because they were out past their curfew. That’s because most of us have parents. And most of them care. The government, however, chooses to disregard the fact that we have parents/legal guardians, and that it’s their job to set such rules for us.
Although minor school infractions such as chewing gum or talking in class can be a nuisance that led to small disciplinary actions. However, these infractions soon begin to expand throughout other areas of control. According to Eisenbraun, (2007), gang violence, theft, and assault
Lesile, Katie. "Teen Curfews: Protect Teens, Curb Crime, or Just Peace of Mind?" Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News. N.p., 13 June 2011. Web. 22 May 2014. .
Curfews are here to stop teenagers from roaming the streets at night and causing trouble. In consideration of having a curfew for teenagers, the crime rate has greatly decreased. Many tests and studies have confirmed that curfews do keep teenagers out of trouble. Curfews have helped keep many of the streets safe and free of crime in various cities around the world, even cities in Michigan.
Weigel, Margaret. "Impact of Juvenile Curfew Laws on Arrest of Youth and Adults." 29 November 2011. Journalist's Resource. 7 May 2014 .
Strict rules create rebellious teens. Many people think that curfews are a fundamental way to keeping teens out of trouble, but this is not the case. Curfews are neither applicable, justified, nor are they a way to diminish criminal activities committed by adolescents. Curfews are ultimately useless because there are too many reasons that contradict why a curfew would work.
They are out there causing trouble, drinking, smoking, and having sex. The teenagers: feared by parents all around the world. That is not the reality; the majority of teenagers will not be out looking for trouble. On a typical Friday night teenagers will be hanging out with their friends, catching up with everything that has gone on during the week. Why do parents fear for their teenager’s lives? So often we hear about violent crimes and things that go bump in the night, but do we think that the problems can be solved by a magical curfew? Can parents really keep their teenagers out of trouble or does an imposed curfew only lead to resentment and chaos? Parents think back to when you were a teenager, did you have a curfew? If so, did you follow the rules or break them? Teenagers are no more likely to follow the rules today than they were in the past. It is not likely that creating a curfew for teenagers will cut down on the risk of violence and rule breaking.
Not only can they get into trouble, but they can also run into trouble. High Schooler’s are easy targets for trouble, plain and simple. If the police have heard of a crime committed and it is late at night and they see a group of High Schoolers they will question you and maybe even bring you to the station. In 1997 9 out of 10 cities said that curfews are a good use of police officers time and 88 % observed that enforcing curfews made their streets safer. If curfews can be inflicted and put into play, students may have much more opportunities to succeed and be better than the people before them. In another example if students are home by curfew there is no reason for trouble. This keeps them safe and it keeps their friends safe.
Crime is a plague that has haunted American citizens for centuries. The severity of crime has ranged from running a red light to cold blooded murder. Statistics indicate that crime rates have been on the rise in the previous decades, especially juvenile crime. Statistics show that, ‘the number of youths aged 14 and younger who have been charged with homicide has jumped by 43 percent in the past twenty years’ (Kids With No Hope, No Fear, No Rules, And No Life, 2). This increase in juvenile crime has struck a chord of fear in many people . Motivated by this fear our society has to come up with a solution to this impending problem. While several suggestions have been offered, crime prevention is the most logical, effective and beneficial solution.
In today’s society, some parents create curfews for their children while others allow their children to create their own curfews. Numerous people argue that setting curfews for teenagers help them refrain from taking part in mischief and help them to develop into superior adults. The remaining group of people state that curfews would make teenagers rebel. Teenage curfews produce different positive but many negative views in parents and teenagers.
A false sense of security exists as one of the disadvantages of teenage curfews. Parents assume that when they force their children home at a certain time, they will not participate in anything immoral, but that is not always true. The Aspen Education Group states, “While a teenager staying out late can cause issues, it’s important not to use a curfew as a general answer to these possible problems” (Hatter 1). In realization, if teenagers obtain the desire to involve themselves in corrupt acts, they will find a way to do so no matter the time. Teenagers would feel more pressured to sneak out if their friends were participating in something that they could not be a part of due to their curfew. If parents rely on curfews to protect their children from negative activities, they will eventually notice teenagers contain their own willpower (Hatter 1).