Persuasive Essay On Curfew

Click! Carefully, you turn your key into the lock and let yourself into the house - only to find your parents glaring back at you. “Where were you? It’s almost midnight!” They scream as you try in vain to explain yourself. “Starting immediately, your curfew is 9 pm.” Curfews have been implemented by parents in the past, and now the government is thinking of creating a nationwide curfew. Kids often view this as an unnecessary law, and it is. There should not be a legal curfew because it violates minors rights, waste police resources and are actually ineffective.
There should not be a curfew because it disregards the basic rights of teenagers. The first and fourth amendment were both created to ensure that the freedom and privacy of American citizens was protected. Having a curfew would mean

This is because most juvenile crime isn’t committed at night, and most of the serious crimes aren’t executed by minors. A graph found on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s website showed that “Juvenile violence peaks in the afterschool hours on school days and in the evenings on non school days” (“Juvenile Violent Crime Time of Day” US Department of Justice, ojjdp.gov). Specifically, the most juvenile crime is committed between 2pm and 4pm on a school day and 8pm on a non school day. Curfews are usually enforced in the night, such as between 10 pm and 6 am. As you can see, having a curfew during this time does not actually target the peak of crime. In fact, a study conducted by the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange showed that “Studies of dozens of cities across the nation found no effect or bad effects following youth curfews. An 18-year analysis of 21 cities in California found youth curfews useless or worse.” (“OP-ED: Why Don’t Youth Curfews Work?”, M. Males, jjie.org). This quote clearly shows that there is no benefit in enforcing youth