Curfews: Violating Basic Liberties

Child curfews are laws requiring youth below a certain age to either return home, or leave the streets between certain hours of the night and day. Youth who are simply on the streets late at night are swept off by police officers and often taken to police stations and issued warnings. Youth are often arrested simply for being present in public during the night  without causing any disruptions. Young adults who are mistaken for children are arrested, even when they are legally capable of public presence in the night. Many perfectly behaved, polite, and responsible children are arrested in vain for their harmless public presence simply because of the time they were born. Curfew laws fall identical to the Jim-Crow laws, or sundown laws which limited what hours blacks were allowed  in public places and on the streets. Now children are the target of such unfair prejudices.

Child curfews laws were enacted in the 1980's  in an attempt to lower youth crime has unnecessarily punished many youth who simply roam the streets in a non-disruptive fashion. Curfew laws are not federal, many states and cities have varying curfew times and ages. Some cities even enforce daytime curfews, which generally cover school hours and at times immediately after school. Curfew laws have done nothing to lower teen crime rates as many parents and policy supporters have claimed. Children continue to commit crime in the hours that they are allowed outside their homes and those who commit crimes against youth do the same. 

Curfews simply are not an effective way to deal with crime. Curfew laws continue to punish many very polite and respectful youth who should enjoy the right to liberty and their privileges as a United States citizen under the 14th amendment should which should not be violated or undermined due to age. Children should be able to decide when they are on the streets as they wish. Child curfew laws are clearly unconstitutional. They violate 14th amendment rights, making children treated as the lesser as US citizens. Youth should be taught responsibility,  and instead of restricted, allowed to exercise that responsibility with liberty when in public.