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California Correctional Crisis wrote an excellent blog discussing juvenile curfews yesterday, recommending that before introducing juvenile curfews we should know more about juvenile crime rates. The blog post highlights several articles including recent op-eds by CJCJ’s Senior Research Fellow Mike Males and Communications Specialist Selena Teji, and a study by Patrick Kline that suggests curfews are effective overall at reducing crime for juveniles below curfew age. 

As Mike Males points out however, this study only included cities that implemented curfews and failed to account for national trends showing much larger crime declines among younger teens than among those older teens subject to curfews, including in cities without curfews. For example, both property and violent crime rates fell steeply in the 1990s and 2000s among youths in San Francisco, which didn’t have a curfew.” He argues that curfews are a waste of police resources, and that the presence of teenagers actually makes the streets safer. Listen to his latest video blog for more insights into teen curfews. 

~ CJCJ Senior Research Fellow, Mike Males, Ph.D.