Teen Curfews: The Truth

I wake up to an alarm blaring in my ears. I quickly get up to stop the ear-splitting sound, and stare at the clock, which reads 2:45AM. It took me a minute to remember why the heck I had set my alarm for 2:45AM on a summer night. Oh yeah! I remembered. My cousin and I were planning to sneak out of our resort in Florida to walk around the beach and walk to a little town called Seaside. I quietly walked over to where she was sleeping and shook her awake. “Lindsay! Wake up. It’s time”. She rubbed her eyes and quickly got up. I grabbed my phone and key card and stuffed them into my shorts. “Let’s go”. As we walk out to the living room, my other cousin asked where we were going. “Out” I replied suspiciously. “Well, don’t get caught. We have a curfew, you know” he mutters. “We know” said my other cousin as we slip out the door.

Many people who are involved in the discussion of teen curfews agree that the curfew doesn’t reduce teen crime at night. “The teen curfew doesn’t affect the crime ratio in cities at all” says Teen Ink. Curfews don’t reduce the crime at night. Because of the fact that a majority of teenagers tend to not follow the rules, they don’t care what the curfew is, whether it is 11PM or 3AM, or who enforces it, whether it’s their parents or the police. Teenagers do the exact opposite of what they’re told without considering the possible consequences and outcomes.

Teenagers are tempted to do the things they’re told not to do, try things they’re told not to try, and so on. “It is creating a temptation to sneak out which may cause them to commit a crime” says Teen Ink. Curfews may even, in fact, influence some teens to sneak out when they’re not supposed to. Teenagers don’t like being told what to do or how to do it, and like to repent from authority.

There is a large debate on whether or not curfews reduce teen crime overall, or just in the nighttime. “Teen curfew tries to reduce the teen crime but what it really does is increase the crime done in the day time” says Teen Ink. Curfews do not reduce teen crime rate overall and this is a proven fact. Even if, in some cities, the teen crime rate at night is reduced due to curfew, the crime done in the daytime just increases, evening out the crime done for the day to the same as it was (in some cases even higher) than before.

The main goal of curfews is to keep teenagers out of trouble and reduce nighttime crime committed by teens (which isn’t working out so well). The issue on whether or not the nighttime crime is reduced thanks to this curfew is a heated topic among everybody (concerned parents and their kids, police officers, and others). Some say that crime is reduced at night because teens are scared of getting in trouble. Let me say this, most teenagers are fearless, and it isn’t a bad thing to be fearless. Fear holds you back from doing things you love, and when that happens you’re not living life to the fullest. Back to the point, teens don’t care if there’s a risk of getting in trouble by police or their parents, we like taking risks and doing things purely for the thrill of it. Saying that teens are scared to go out at night because there’s a possibility of getting in trouble is a highly flawed argument. Teens do the opposite of what they’re told, as I’ve said before, and I know that from personal experience. So, if there’s a curfew, there’s a big chance that most teenagers won’t follow it. Also, teens like to feel a sense of freedom and independence because they don’t like to follow the rules and do what they’re told. This curfew may even tempt some teenagers to commit a crime, even if they wouldn’t have done so before the curfew came into play. Teenagers don’t like to be bossed around, nobody does.

Curfews are bad. They don’t reduce crime, they just encourage it! The topic of teen curfews is really important because they affect everyone. They affect the teenagers because they now have new rules which they have to follow. They affect their parents because they must enforce the curfew and make sure their teen is following it, they affect even those without kids because they could be a victim of, let’s say an attack, if a teen chose to stay out past curfew and commit a crime. Lastly, they affect police officers and law officials because instead of worrying about serial killers and mass murderers, they now have to deal with kids staying out late at night committing small crimes. Take it from me, a 14 year old. When I’m told to do something by my parents, most of the time I won’t do it on time, or a quality job, just because I’m a teenager and we don’t like to do what we’re told and follow the rules. Remember the story that I told you earlier about how my cousin and I snuck out at 2:45AM when we had a curfew? Even though it wasn’t a law-enforced curfew, it was one that our parents had enforced, if police officers saw a couple of kids walking around at that time, we’d probably get in some kind of trouble. All we wanted to do at that time was walk around the town and go to the beach. We weren’t planning on committing any type of crime, so why should we have curfew? The only thing that curfews do is encourage crime, and turn good kids into bad ones by tempting them to do something they’re told not to do.