|
Curfew
Curfews have reemerged recently as a popular option for policymakers in their efforts to deter
juvenile victimization and delinquency. Imposed on
and off since the turn of the century, curfews tend
to receive increased attention when there is a
perceived need for more stringent efforts at social control.
For example, curfew ordinances were originally
enacted in the 1890's to decrease crime among
immigrant youth. During World War II, curfews were
perceived as an effective control for parents who
were busy helping with the war effort. More recent
interest in juvenile curfew ordinances came as a
response to growing juvenile crime during the
1970's.48
Many States have laws enabling localities to
enact curfew ordinances, with Georgia, Minnesota,
Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas recently enacting laws of
this sort, according to NCSL.49
Only Hawaii has
enacted statewide curfew legislation. Both California
and Florida have debated the idea of adopting
statewide curfew legislation, but neither State has enacted
any legislation to that end.
Traditionally under the jurisdiction of local
governments, curfews are commonplace in cities and
towns across America, according to the U.S. Conference
of Mayors. In a December 1995 survey of 1,000
cities with populations of more than 30,000, the
conference found that 70 percent, or 270 of the 387
cities responding, have a curfew ordinance in place.
An additional 6 percent, or 23 cities, were
considering adopting curfew legislation, according to the
survey.50
Cities that have enacted new curfew
ordinances or have amended existing curfew
legislation since 1994 include Arlington, VA; Austin, TX;
Baltimore, MD; Buffalo, NY; Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; and San Jose, CA.51
Curfew laws vary with respect to the locale
affected, timeframe, and sanctions. Most restrict minors
to their homes or property between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., with some jurisdictions
allowing exceptions for weekend nights or summer
months. Many curfew ordinances provide exemptions
for youth who are going to or from a school-,
religious-, or civic-sponsored event. Youth traveling
from places of employment or responding to
emergencies often are excluded from curfew provisions as
well. Several ordinances allow unrestricted mobility
for youth who are married, accompanied by an adult,
or traveling with a parent's permission.
In addition, some curfew laws impose more stringent curfew parameters in specific zones of the
city, usually in targeted high-crime or commercially
important areas. A recent example of this type
comes from the city of Austin where, in 1994, the
city council took action to limit youth activity in
the nightclub district of the city. In that area, the
curfew begins at 10 p.m. each night, compared with
the 11:30 p.m. curfew for the rest of Austin.52
Enforcement efforts also differ from city to
city. William Ruefle, then of the University of South
Alabama, and Kenneth Mike Reynolds, of the University of New Orleans, found in a recent
literature review and survey of existing curfew
ordinances that curfew enforcement initiatives are
implemented through regular law enforcement and special
policing units. The 1994 survey, which polled 77
U.S. police departments in cities with populations
of 200,000 or more, indicates that 71 percent of
the cities with curfew ordinances used regular law
enforcement personnel and resources to implement
the cities' curfew initiatives. The remaining police
departments frequently used additional personnel
to augment regular enforcement, according to the
survey. These added officers contributed to
periodic sweeps or "zero tolerance" crackdown efforts
in which law enforcement personnel were pulled
from other assignments for short periods to strongly
enforce a curfew ordinance.53
Sanctions for curfew violations, which are
status offenses for juveniles, also may vary among
jurisdictions. Offenders can be fined from $50 to
several hundred dollars or charged with a
misdemeanor. Some ordinances include a parental
accountability provision, under which parents can be held
partially or fully responsible for children's curfew
violations. Sanctions against parents may include
participation in diversion programs, fines, and, in some
jurisdictions, jail time. For example, the 1994 curfew
ordinance in Denver, CO, does not mandate a fine
be levied against parents whose children violate
the city's curfew ordinance. Rather, the law provides
for the assessment of a fine only if the youth and
their parents fail to participate in a court-assigned
diversion program.54
Pros and Cons
The stated goal of most curfew laws is twofold:
to prevent juvenile crime and to protect youth
from victimization. According to the Ruefle and
Reynolds analysis, those who support juvenile curfews
indicate that neighborhoods afflicted with high rates
of crime may use curfews as a "means to protect
nondelinquent youth from crime and to deny
delinquent youth the opportunity to engage in criminal
behavior."55
By keeping youth under the age of 18 off
the street, curfews are expected to reduce the
incidence of crime among the cohort most likely to
offend, according to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's (FBI's) 1994 Uniform Crime Report
(UCR).56
Since juvenile perpetrators of crime often take as
their victims other youth, it is hoped that rates of
youth victimization will drop as well.
Curfews are credited by some with restoring and maintaining order in lower crime
neighborhoods, according to the Ruefle and Reynolds analysis.
In addition to equipping law enforcement with tools
to keep youth off the streets, curfews provide
parents with a legitimate, legal basis for restricting the
activities of their children. It is easier for parents
to place boundaries on their children's activities,
proponents argue, when other youth in the neighborhood are similarly restricted by a specific time
to return home.57
Critics of curfew ordinances oppose these
initiatives on both practical and legal grounds. According
to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), curfew enforcement is often
ineffective and unnecessarily funnels large numbers of
nondelinquent youth into a criminal justice system that
is already inundated with alleged
offenders.58
In addition, some opponents cite a dearth of empirical
evidence supporting the efficacy of curfew
legislation. According to the literature review conducted
by Ruefle and Reynolds, little or no recent
empirical evidence indicates that curfew initiatives have
an effect on juvenile crime, nor has research
addressed the impact of curfews and their enforcement on
the criminal justice system as a whole.59
The one outcome evaluation uncovered by Ruefle and Reynolds described the efficacy of a Detroit, MI, curfew ordinance evaluated during the
summer of 1976. The before-and-after comparison of
youth gangs indicated that the presence of a curfew
seemed to reduce or suppress crime levels effectively
during curfew hours. However, the authors note that
this diminished incidence of youth misbehavior
while under curfew was accompanied by an
observable increase in criminal activity between 2 and 4
p.m. Thus, it appears as if youth misconduct was
merely displaced to time periods when the curfew
ordinance was not in effect.60
Additional criticisms come from other groups,
like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
who argue that curfew measures violate the
constitutional rights of children and parents. Legal
challenges to the constitutionality of curfew laws
are most often based on the 1st, 4th, 9th, and
14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, according to
a recent report by OJJDP. Opponents of curfew ordinances are concerned with the restrictive
nature of these laws and the limitations on a youth's
first amendment right to free speech and
association. Others argue that curfews give law
enforcement excessive power to detain children without
probable cause and subject them to police questioning in
violation of the fourth amendment's guarantees
against unreasonable search and seizure. Additional
legal challenges to curfew laws have been based on
the ninth amendment, which has been interpreted as providing a privacy right applicable to parents
rearing children. Yet other critics argue that
curfews violate the equal protection clause of the
14th amendment by establishing a suspect
classification based solely on the age of a group of
individuals.61
Some groups, like NCCD, fear that this
classification may result in a disparate enforcement of
curfew initiatives, to the detriment of minority
youth.62
Further, some court cases have struck down
curfew laws because they are vague and overreaching,
not because they violate fundamental rights.
Judicial Interpretation of the Constitutionality of Curfews
U.S. district and appellate court decisions
indicate that the critical issue in cases challenging curfew
ordinances may be maintaining the intricate balance
between the government's interest in protecting
public safety and ensuring the mobility rights of youth.
A recent case in Texas illustrates this problem. In
May 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear
an appeal of a case, Qutb v. Bartlett, in which the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a
Dallas, TX, curfew ordinance. The refusal to hear
the case allowed the Fifth Circuit's decision to stand.
The ordinance, adopted by the city in June
1991, prohibits persons under the age of 17 from
being present in a public place or establishment
between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. on weeknights and between
midnight and 6 a.m. on weekends. The law does not apply if the juvenile is traveling to or from
work, church, or a civic event; if the juvenile is
accompanied by a parent or guardian; if there is an
emergency; if the juvenile is running an errand for
a parent or guardian; or if the juvenile is on the
sidewalk in front of his or her home. The maximum
penalty for violating the ordinance is a $500 fine.
The minor's parent also may be fined if he or she allows
a minor to remain in any public place during the
curfew.
In Qutb v. Bartlett, a mother and daughter
challenged the ordinance on the grounds that the
ordinance unconstitutionally infringed upon a youth's right
to mobility and free association and a parent's
fundamental privacy interest in choosing how children
are to be raised.
The Federal district court ruled in favor of
the Qutbs. However, the Fifth Circuit reversed,
ruling that an ordinance may be constitutional, even
when it infringes upon a fundamental right, if it
promotes a compelling governmental interest and if no
less restrictive way exists to achieve the State's
objective. The court held that the Dallas City Council
proved its compelling interest in reducing juvenile crime
by providing statistical findings that showed the
incidence of youth misconduct in the city. The data
provided demographic information about the
prevalence of juvenile delinquency, the incidence of
specific crimes, and the times of day and locations at
which most violent juvenile crimes were committed.
This effort, combined with the numerous exceptions
written in the ordinance, indicated to the court
the council's intent of limiting youth crime and
victimization in the least restrictive manner possible.
The court concluded that "the ordinance presents only
a minimal intrusion into the parents' rights"
because of the broad exemptions.63
The Court's refusal to hear an appeal in the
Qutb case does not guarantee protection against
future challenges to curfews on constitutional or
nonconstitutional grounds. However, a more recent
ruling out of the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of California upheld that city's more
stringent curfew legislation based upon the Qutb precedent.
In March 1995, ACLU filed a suit in San Diego Federal court challenging the city's juvenile curfew
ordinance on the grounds that it unreasonably
restricted the mobility of youth in the city. The ACLU
suit came in response to 6 months of aggressive
enforcement of the curfew legislation in late 1994.
From June to November of that year, 2,300 young
people were arrested for curfew violations, an increase
from the 1,000 charged with a violation during that
same period in 1993.64
The Federal district court upheld the 10 p.m.
curfew ordinance in December 1995. According to the
court, the city has a legal right to impose ordinances meant
to "promote the moral, social, and physical welfare
of minors" by keeping them off the
streets.65
At the time of this writing, ACLU was appealing the judgment.
An October 1996 decision handed down by the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
illustrates the significance of obtaining relevant data to
support the position that a curfew ordinance fulfills a
public safety need. In Hutchins v. District of
Columbia,66
a group of minors, parents, and a commercial
establishment sued the District of Columbia to restrain
the city from enforcing its Juvenile Curfew Act of
1995. Under the law, minors under the age of 17 could
not be in any public place or on the premises of any
establishment, with certain exceptions, in the District
of Columbia, on Sunday through Thursday between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. and between midnight and 6 a.m.
on weekends and during the summer.
None of the plaintiffs who commenced the action were prosecuted under the curfew law, but the
minors argued that the imposition of the law
violated their constitutional rights to freedom of
movement while their parents asserted that the law
infringed upon their fundamental rights to raise and
supervise their children. The plaintiffs contended that
because the law violated protected fundamental rights,
the District of Columbia must show that the law
was necessary to promote a compelling interest and
that it was narrowly tailored to advance that purpose.
The U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia found that both the minors and parents had
protected fundamental rights under the U.S.
Constitution and analyzed the curfew law to
determine whether the District of Columbia law was
constitutional. The court found that the District of
Columbia had a compelling interest in enacting the law
because the three objectives were to (1) protect
children from becoming victims or perpetrators of crimes, (2) assist parents in exercising their
responsibility over minors, and (3) prevent all
persons from the dangers posed by unsupervised
minors who are out late at night and in the early morning.
The court found, however, that although the
District of Columbia had a compelling interest in
enacting the law, it was drawn broadly without
consideration of less restrictive means to achieve the three aims
of the curfew law. The Federal district court was
critical of the data compiled by the District of
Columbia and concerned with the city's inability to show
that the enactment of a curfew ordinance would
preserve public safety. In drafting the law, the City
Council relied on "extrapolated" crime statistics that did
not distinguish between crimes committed by
juveniles or the time of day that the crimes occurred. In
other words, the statistics did not demonstrate a
clear connection between the stated purpose of the
law and the restriction imposed upon all juveniles.
The court also found that the data that the District
of Columbia relied upon was flawed. The data
included 18-year-olds as minors, whereas the curfew law
considered those under 17 years of age as minors.
Further, the majority of the data was based upon Federal statistics rather than local statistics. In
fact, the court indicated that the District of
Columbia ignored data showing that more than 90 percent
of all juveniles do not commit crimes and are not
arrested at night or at any other time.
As a result, the court found that the District
of Columbia's evidence was insufficient to support
the imposition of a curfew on all minors as a means
to reduce juvenile crime and victimization and that
the law was not narrowly drawn to achieve the
purpose of the curfew law. Consequently, the court
found that the law impermissibly interfered with a
minor's right of freedom of movement and a parent's right
to raise and supervise his or her minor children
and held that the curfew law was unconstitutional.
Recent Initiatives
Although empirical studies addressing the impact
of juvenile curfew ordinances have not yet been
undertaken, officials of several localities that
recently adopted curfew legislation have self-reported
success since the introduction of these initiatives into
their communities. For example, 3 months after the
enactment of the Dallas curfew ordinance, the Dallas
Police Department found that juvenile
victimization during curfew hours declined by 17.7 percent
and juvenile arrests during curfew hours dropped by
14.6 percent, according to the recent OJJDP
report.67
New Orleans, which has enacted one of the
strictest curfew ordinances in the country, also reports a
significant decrease in juvenile crime since its
curfew ordinance went into effect in May 1994. The
dusk-to-dawn curfew, enacted in response to an
escalating level of violent crime involving juveniles as both
perpetrators and victims, was influential in
decreasing the incidence of youth crime arrests by 27 percent
the year after its adoption. In that same time
period, armed robbery arrests decreased by 33 percent
and auto theft arrests decreased by 42
percent.68
A curfew ordinance in Long Beach, CA, amended
in January 1994, has enjoyed similar success. In
an attempt to meet the needs of the city's
growing population and thwart escalating gang activity,
Long Beach officials established a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
curfew law. The ordinance led to a 14-percent decrease
in the average number of crimes committed per hour
in 1994, compared with 1993. Gang-related
shootings decreased in that time period as well, down
nearly 23 percent. However, Chief William Ellis of
the Long Beach Police Department acknowledged that Long Beach has experienced displacement of
youth delinquency. "In Long Beach," Ellis said,
"approximately twice as many crimes per hour are
committed during noncurfew hours as during curfew
hours."69
Effective curfew programs share several components. Two of the keys to the success of any
curfew ordinance are sustained enforcement and
community involvement, according to the OJJDP
report. Curfew laws are less successful when they are
enforced rigorously immediately after adoption,
but become more loosely enforced as limited law enforcement resources and personnel are pushed
into other policing efforts. City officials ensure a
pro- gram's success by making a long-term
commitment to enforcement and by enlisting volunteers to fill
out paperwork, wait for parents to pick up their
children, or give on-the-spot counseling to parents and children.
Other factors that contribute to the
implementation of successful curfew policies include:
| Establishing a curfew center or using
recreational, religious, or educational facilities to
hold violators while they await their parents. |
| Staffing centers with community social
service providers and volunteers; providing
intervention services for juveniles and their families. |
| Creating specific procedures for repeat
offenders; recreational, educational, and job
opportunities for offenders; and antidrug and antigang programs. |
| Providing a hotline for community questions
or problems related to curfews and juvenile delinquency in general. |
48. Tamara Henry, Curfews Attempt to Curb Teen
Crime, USA Today, Apr. 5, 1995.
49. NCSL Legislator's Guide, supra note 33.
50. Cities with Curfews Trying to Meet Constitutional
Test, Wash. Post, Dec. 26, 1995.
51. William Ruefle & Kenneth Mike Reynolds,
Curfews and Delinquency in Major American Cities, 41
Crime & Delinquency 347, 355358 (July 1995).
52. Id. at 358.
53. Id.
54. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Juvenile Justice
Bulletin, Curfew: An Answer to Juvenile Delinquency and
Victimization 4 (April 1996) [hereinafter Curfew].
55. Id. at 349.
56. 1994 UCR, supra note 3, at 221.
57. Ruefle & Reynolds, supra note 51, at 348.
58. Id. at 347.
59. Id. at 350.
60. Id. at 351.
61. Curfew, supra note 54, at 7.
62. Ruefle & Reynolds, supra note 51, at 347.
63. Qutb v. Bartlett, 11 F.3d 494 (5th Cir. 1993).
64. ACLU Challenges San Diego's Curfew Law; Lawsuit Filed in
Federal Court on Behalf of Teenagers, Parents, Press Release
by American Civil Liberties Union, March 15, 1995.
65. Tony Perry, Teen Curfew in San Diego Upheld,
L.A. Times, Dec. 19, 1995.
66. Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 942 F. Supp. 665
(D.D.C. 1996).
67. Curfew, supra note 54, at 45.
68. Id. at 7.
69. Chief Samuel D. Pratcher, A Response to Juvenile Curfew
Violations, 61 Police Chief 58, 58 (Dec. 1994).
|