The Oxford Dictionary defines curfew as, “A signal or time after which people must remain indoors until the next day.” This, to us just means that a curfew is a way to keep us young people off the streets. Having teenagers wandering the suburbs at dark, young people are given a chance to act in a criminal way. Therefore, a youth curfew is essential to a society of any sort.
One of the main goals of a youth curfew law is to protect non-delinquent youths. It is stated by the Curfew Laws that a main purpose of a curfew is to protect youths from victimization. According to the Ruefle and Reynolds analysis, the curfew may be used as a “means to protect non-delinquent youth from crime and to deny delinquent youth the opportunity to engage in criminal behaviour.” Also, according to the FBI’s UCR report, youth perpetrators often take crime upon people of their age so it is expected that crime rates of victimization will reduce. Through reference from the Office of Crime Statistics and Research in Adelaide, it has been displayed that a high number of teenagers participate in youth crime. In the year of 2004, it was recorded by the South Australian police that persons of the age between 10-17 years of age were apprehended for crime, with the figure stretching up to 6,482. Unfortunately, this number does not include the other youths who have offended the law whilst also getting away with their crime. Having still excluded the unknown figure, it still can be seen that there are high rates of crime.
Youth Curfews not only reduces victimization, it also is a form of zero tolerance policing, the curfew creates an atmosphere whereby it is shown that the community does not allow or accept the development of any lawlessness within the area. The idea of having zero tolerance comes from the presence of low-levelled crimes, such as, graffiti spraying, breaking glass windows, drug dealing and etc. (all of which are criminal acts performed by youths). If these minor problems.
