Juvenile Curfews and Race: A Cautionary Note

Abstract

During the 1990s, the United States experienced a rise in the popularity of nocturnal juvenile curfews as a method of crime prevention. Prior research has not, however, found curfews to be particularly effective in achieving their goals, and concerns have been raised about discriminatory enforcement. In this article we examine the implementation of a juvenile curfew in a large southern city, Charlotte, North Carolina, and investigate its impact on different racial groups. The background characteristics of curfew violators were found to mirror those of juvenile offenders in general, and different types of violators were cited in different areas of town. However, although the curfew had a positive or at least a neutral effect on some offenders, it had an escalation effect on Asian and Hispanic youth. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.