The Impact of a Curfew on Teenagers

Teenagers are often very adventurous because they are at the age of curiosity and fun because they want to get to understand the world around them better. So naturally, the idea of curfews would help restrain safety in the community. But sometimes, students in their junior or senior year of highschool might want to have jobs in contribution to their schoolwork. By limiting their curfew, students will be unable to go to work and support themselves or even their family. So therefore, having the curfew would cause inconvenience and inequality to the teens that are making the right choices.

Students can sometimes have after school activities that causes them occupied for a long period of time that can end very late in the night. Teens can periodically take some night lessons for a dance team or can have a sports game at night and the event ends at 10:30 or even later and can not get home by themselves and must cause inconvenience to their guardian or family member to provide transportation for them to return home.

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And because of that, some teens will have to wait until their parents leave work to pick them, which can be a long period of time.

Rather than waiting, students can ride a bike home, take a bus, or even walk home which is a curfew applied by Denver, Colorado stating, “…people under 18 must be off the streets and public places…Exceptions include going to and from work…” (“Youth Curfews are Effective” by The Denver Post).

By doing this, it wastes less time for teenagers, and time is very precious to the students because some might need to complete their school work or rest in order to prepare for the next day of school instead of wait in discomfort for a ride. Some teens can have jobs along with school to earn money. Due to being in a high grade level, work load can be overwhelming and tedious, so either the teens work on the weekend or late at night. Therefore, by limiting their curfew, it can limit what the students can accomplish within 24 hours.

Teenagers can also work at night after completing their work to help support themselves, their family, or for their college tuition. But, by classifying those hard working students with the troublesome ones is completely unfair.

To further illustrate, sometimes curfews don’t even serve a purpose the teen’s safety. It can just be made simply for power and controlling purposes stating, “Whenever we get worried that the youth are out of control, we enact a curfew. And that makes us feel better, even if it doesn’t make crime go down.” (Article by Jonathan Zimmerman) By enforcing this curfew upon the teenagers, it makes them feel very restricted and it will cause them to have a feeling of rebellion, which leads to the main purpose of the curfew irrelevant.

Curfews should be for the guardians to decide not the city, with an exception of those that consecutively causes trouble, because if teens that are responsible and making wise decisions are being “punished” because of crimes that they did not do it would be unjust. The city should find out exactly who is causing difficulty and give them a special curfew for them to follow so it would be a civil decision for everyone. That shows that what we are doing is always right and for the good of others.

Overall, curfews should be decided and appointed by the guardians of the teens because it is their responsibility to care for the children and their safety. The city should only assign curfews to the ones that have caused disturbances because classifying the innocent ones with the troublesome ones is just unfair.