From The Appeal:
In 1996, President Bill Clinton flew to Monrovia, California, to highlight the city’s daytime youth curfew aimed at curbing truancy. The curfew, along with a new uniform rule, “may wind up being the most important anticrime initiatives you’ll ever adopt,” Clinton said during a speech at a local high school. “Other communities have got to do this.”
Local governments took Clinton’s advice. Youth curfews proliferated in the tough-on-crime era of the 1990s. By 2009, 84 percent of cities with more than 180,000 residents had youth curfews. Proponents said the restrictions prevented kids from committing crimes and protected children from becoming victims.
But, despite nationwide protests against police violence in 2020, these heavy-handed curfews persist. Currently, there are more than 400 states, counties, cities, and towns “where it is illegal for young people to be outside of their homes at certain times of the day,” according to the National Youth Rights Association. The United States is one of the only countries to use youth curfews so widely. Just this year, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Chicago all made existing summer curfews begin hours earlier. Prince George’s County, Maryland, also instituted a brand new curfew, with the county executive saying, “these kids don’t just need a hug, they also need to be held accountable.” Continue reading >>>
|
|
|
|
