National Youth Curfew

One of the biggest conflict causing issues between parents and teenagers is curfew. Intended to extend social courtesy to parents and keep teenagers out of trouble, a curfew sets boundaries pertaining to the time a teen should have to be home by. Many communities across the United States enforce a citywide curfew, requiring anyone under a certain age to be home by a certain time in the night unless accompanied by a parent or individual over the age of 21. Now, many people have applied this idea to a larger scale, a national teen curfew instead of a citywide curfew.
According to Deana Case, teenage curfews have been around for centuries, and are considered as a right of passage, requiring the young adult to show that he has learned to handle the responsibilities that go along with freedom (Case). While parents may have many different motives for imposing a curfew on a teenaged child, the most popular reasoning is that parents want to keep their child safe, they want to know where they are and when to expect them home safe and sound. A parent’s number one concern is the child’s safety. A curfew could also act as an excuse to get out of unsafe or undesirable situations, or as a simple excuse to leave. These curfews eliminate worry by allowing the parent the knowledge of when their child will be home by and ensuring that if need be, the child has a reliable excuse to leave if they were to be caught up in a risky situation (Case).
City curfews are imposed in the hopes of reducing the rate of crime and gang violence that goes on in the later hours of the night. The Aspen Education Group wrote an article to help parents determine curfews for their children. They advised parents to do some research and find out what kind of crime and gang violence occurs in their cities, and where and when these activities occur to help determine a curfew fit to keep their child out of trouble (Aspen Edu.).
While curfews are obviously a great tool to teach teenagers responsibility, to ensure safety and keep teens out of trouble, it should ultimately be up to the parent of the teen to decide when they should be home each night. A nationwide teenage curfew would bring teens back