Why Age-Based Curfew Laws Are Still a Bad Idea

While the primary focus and goal of Twenty-One Debunked is getting the drinking age (and now the smoking and toking ages as well) lowered (back) to 18 and not a day higher, yesterday, we have always been adamantly against age-based curfew laws of any kind, period.   It should clearly go without saying that anyone who claims to support youth rights in general should oppose such an ageist abomination.  After all, freedom of movement is a fundamental civil and human right, and youth rights is about ALL young people, NOT just 18-20 or 18-24 year old young adults.  When we ignore that fact, we do so at our own peril, given the tendency for adultism to snowball, creep up the age scale, and ultimately backfire on adults.

And aside from the injustice aspect of curfew laws (the very archetype of so-called "status offenses"), both ageist and also intersectional with classism and racism, there are also utilitarian reasons to oppose these unjust laws.  It turns out that they most likely do NOT work as intended as far as reducing crime, in fact, they may actually increase crime by reducing the number of "eyes on the street" (and thus potential witnesses) at night.  For example, a recent study of Washington, DC's youth curfew law found strong evidence of increased gunshots occurring during the marginal hour of 11pm to midnight when the timing of the curfew varied seasonally.  Also, San Francisco saw a larger percentage drop in crime, particularly juvenile crime, than the nation as a whole the from 1990-2000 when they stopped enforcing their curfew law in 1992 and repealed it in 1995.  And NYC, who also saw more crime reduction than the national average, never had a youth curfew at all.  Thus, the evidence for any benefits of such laws is mixed at best, and the overwhelming weight of the evidence points to no benefit or more harm than good.

Thus, repealing these ageist abominations should really be a no-brainer.  As for the specious argument that curfew laws are a somehow necessary counterweight to peer pressure and social pressure for parents to be more lenient than they would otherwise be, that argument is also not valid in a free society.  What authoritarians and paternalistic types call a "race to the bottom", youth-rights activists, and in fact all genuine libertarians, call "freedom".  And since the neoliberal idea that "if you can, you must" is literally nothing more than the flip side of authoritarianism, the solution to that is LESS authoritarianism, not more.  You don't stop coercion by coercing, after all.  The "tyranny of the weaker brother" is still tyranny, the pompous self-righteousness of its advocates notwithstanding.

And finally, if curfew laws are so great, and our streets are really so dangerous these days (both dubious claims at that), why are their advocates not applying them to all ages then?  After all, most crime is committed by people over 18, not under.  And perhaps if in effect very temporarily (say, 90 days or less) in areas with very high crime, there may very well be a benefit to an all-ages curfew that would not be seen so much with an age-based curfew.  But again, if done willy-nilly and/or left on the books for too long, it may still have the same sort of racist and classist effects that loitering laws and other victimless crime laws have.  After all, if someone is arrested or cited for curfew violation and/or loitering, what it really means is that the cop couldn't get them for trespassing, obstructing traffic, theft, vandalism, violence, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, littering, or anything else, but still chose to arrest or ticket them anyway, because reasons.  Or something.

Discriminatory curfew laws of any type have no place in a free society.  It should be "liberty and justice for all", not "liberty for just us, not all".