Teenage Curfews
One question arising from the literature review is whether young people are “devils or
angels?” Whatever the answer may be, teenagers seem to be treated with caution for
being either the perpetrators or the victims of crime in public space. This is reflected in
government policies, particularly in Anglo-American countries, which use various
surveillance and policing methods to control young people’s behaviour and activities in
public space in order to tackle - as they argue – crime and juvenile delinquency. The
implementation of juvenile curfews is one such government policy to control crime in
public space by imposing strict spatial and temporal restrictions on young people in an era
when many adults view them as a menace to be contained. According to Collins and
Kearns (2001: 401):
“Curfews are legal mechanisms which produce public space as adult space by
banishing young people from the public realm at certain times. […] Indeed, curfews
not only (re)assert adult spatial hegemony but also (re)inforce the social boundaries
between adults and young people, keeping the latter “in their place” by reserving
certain basic rights (e.g. freedom of movement, association and peaceful assembly)
for adults.”
In fact, the proliferation of curfews in recent times is closely connected to the pervasive
moral panic centred upon young people. For sociologists, the concept ‘moral panic’ is “an
instrument of social control used to demonise particular groups”, in this case, young
people (Collins and Kearns 2001: 390). In Britain, the association of moral panic with
young people became stronger after the murder of a three year-old boy, Jamie Bulger, by
two ten year-olds in 1993. The media, in particular, reinforced the image of older children
as ‘devils’ and encouraged the British Conservative Government to initiate juvenile
curfews as a weapon to ‘crack down’ juvenile delinquency.
Teenagers and Public Space
Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 16
However, studies on whether curfews as a strategy to control crime are successful
conclude that this is quite debatable. According to a major study (Males and Macallair
1998) of the effects of curfews on youth crime in 21 cities of 100,000 or more people in
Los Angeles and Orange Counties:
• Curfews cannot be shown to reduce youth crime or violent death over time or by locale
as cities without curfews showed the same patterns as cities that enforced curfews;
• Curfews may actually increase crime and reduce youth safety by occupying police time
removing law-abiding youths from public space, leaving emptier streets and public
places which urban planning experts argue are conductive to crime;
• In Monrovia, California, after the introduction of curfews in 1994, the crime rate did not
decline. More surprising, it declined only during the summer months and school-year
nights and weekends when the curfew was not enforced;
• In Vermon, Connecticut, police reported no instances of criminal activity among the
youth they cited for curfew. Thus, the effect was to remove law-abiding youths from the
streets.
According to this research, young people are not ‘out of control’ as the media and
authorities wrongly portrayed them. Instead, it is adults, particularly those over 30, who
display ‘skyrocketing rates’ of serious crime, drug and alcohol abuse.
In Britain, Matthews, Limb and Taylor’s (1999) large-scale study, carried out as part of the
“Children 5-16: growing into 21st century”, came across similar findings to the research in
California about the validity of juvenile curfews in the country. The study revealed that a
curfew does not offer a way forward as it reinforces a sense of powerlessness and
alienation for young people. In reality, it only portrays how contemporary society perceives
children and young people:
“From being innocent and vulnerable 'angels', victims of circumstance, in need of care
and protection, children in trouble have been systematically reconstructed and
(re)presented in the late 1990's as 'demons', the knowing perpetrators of malevolent
and evil acts” (Matthews, Limb and Taylor: 1713).
The same research showed that young people themselves feel quite vulnerable in public
space, which makes the discourse on and effectiveness of juvenile curfews even more
ambivalent and questionable. According to the research findings, half of the total sample
perceived streets to be fearful places when they are out alone and one fourth of them felt
Teenagers and Public Space
Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 17
the same when they are out with friends. By far the most articulated dangers after traffic
were bullies and gangs, fear of attack and fear of strangers (Matthews, Limb and Taylor
1999). The results suggest that young people' s place fears are largely the products of
how adults use places. The findings also revealed that being with friends when outside the
home is very important to young people. Yet, it is when young people congregate together
that they are often seen as discrepant and their behaviour as threatening. The survey
showed that in most cases all they are doing is making themselves feel safer by being
together.
Another large-scale study on older children’s perceptions of their local urban centres in
Britain, and in particular, on their concerns and fears when using these centres, showed
that one third of them found their own town centre as dangerous and one fifth as violent
(Woolley et al. 1999). Likewise, in the larger towns, teenagers described the presence of
threatening or dangerous groups of people – drunks and drug users – as ‘dangers’. Many
of the young participants also mentioned that they worried about being abducted or raped.
In general, discourse on curfew portrays young people on the street as either a potential
threat to the moral fabric of society or as a group in need of protection from menaces
beyond their control. There is no better way to describe the above argument than Goldson'
s proclamation that “he miners of the mid-1980s have been replaced by the minors of the
mid-1990s” (Goldson 1997: 134).
Rejecting the validity of the curfew orders, the above studies suggest that the streets could
play a positive role in the lives of young people, affording them settings in which they can
escape from being with adults (away from the adult gaze), socialise with people of their
own age, and develop their own sense of identity.
Crime and Teenagers
1.3.3 Skateboarding and Exclusion from Public Space
One teenage group who faces major exclusion from using public space,