Curfews Essay, Research Paper

Teen Curfew

When it was learned that Louisville had input a curfew a few people got worried.

Had teen violence gotten so out of control? I don t think so. As stated above, teen

curfews were brought in to being because of so called massive amounts of teen violence.

You would think that you should leave curfews to the parent.

When did the government have the ability to tell the parents when their children

should be in? And that is were the problem lies. Actually the Louisville Police

Department (LPD) is trying to curve the problem before they get full blown. For part of

that you get no argument from me. But there has to be a better way.

When you think about the actual curfew it effects teens and teens only. If an

officer sees a teen out driving after curfew they assume that that person must be up to

something and that just isn t the case. There could be a number of reasons why that teen

is out. One might be that he is running to the store or getting a movie. They might even

be getting off from work. Hey that something new a responsible teenager.

Another thing that is wrong about curfews is that they punish the majority

because of the minority. In other words a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. Why

not just search out the bad apples? It just sounds so simple, right? But most likely it

isn t as simple as it sounds, most things never are.

Balogun 2

By this time you are most likely wondering, why a teen is so impassioned over

something as minor as a curfew. One night I was driving home and I was pulled over for

no reason. Maybe I had been speeding, I really not sure. That was the assumption made

on my part, but the reason was that I was out past curfew. Well to make a long story short

he gave me a ticket that was pointless. All this trouble due to me dropping a friend off at

home.

The thing is there would be no problem if the curfew was spread across the board,

that includes adults as well as teens. That isn t going to happen any time soon. But there

are good thing that have occurred due to the curfews the crime rate has fallen. But the

teen rate has stayed the same. Most likely the reason is due to if a teen is going to break

the law, he won t care about the curfew. He will just go out and do what he planned.

So in closing, the thing that must be reiterated is that you should not punish the

majority because of the minority. Also it must not take away the powers of the parent. As

a teen this decision has really affected my life.