Persuasive Essay Sample about Curfews For Teens

“Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin,” said Robert Heinlein. So why are we choosing to punish our youth with partial house arrest and portray them to be generally bad? As much as parents and government officials want an easy way to keep teens out of trouble, setting up a curfew and locking them up at a specific time isn’t the way to go. Not only do curfews have no significant effect on crime rates, but they also provide false comfort, harm a teenager's independence, and they can put a strain on parent-child relationships. Apart from a curfew's lack of effectiveness in stopping our children from committing crimes, it is unfair to those who are well-behaved. Teenagers will, if they want, find a way around a curfew to carry on doing what they like, leaving those who don’t commit crimes to suffer the consequences. 

Enforcing impractical curfews does not only encourage rebellion but also violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 2 protects the freedom to assemble and associate. Section 7 protects the right not to be deprived of liberty “except under the principles of fundamental justice, and Section 15 guarantees equality under the law. Curfew laws completely violate these sections.

Freedom of peaceful assembly is guaranteed under Section 2 (c) of the Charter (assembly’s /gatherings must be justified under section 1). Curfew bylaws interfere with youths' ability to associate and assemble peacefully, more specifically, the bylaw prevents youth from applying their freedoms to assemble with other youths during the prohibited hours. As stated above, a violation of this right must be justified under section 1. Curfew bylaws also violate Section 7 - The right to life, liberty, and security of the person. The decision to leave their place of residence at specific hours does not affect the general public unless the youth decides to take part in illegal behaviour. However, the majority of youths do not engage in criminal behaviour. In particular, they do not take part in criminal behaviour that is dangerous to other members of the public.                                                                                        

“Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

Section 15 of the Charter guarantees equality in four ways; it guarantees an individual’s right to be equal before the law, to be equal under the law, to receive the equal benefit of the law, and to have equal protection from the law. Where Section 15 states that every individual has the equal benefit of the law without discrimination based on age, the curfew bylaw would completely violate this section of the Charter. Section 15 specifies that discrimination based on age is unlawful, and the outcome of a curfew bylaw is to discriminate against those individuals within a certain age, specifically teenagers, and withhold their freedom to be in a public space during the authorized hour. 

“It’s the parents’ right and responsibility to engage in that sort of control of their child, not the government’s. If a parent fights with a kid who will only eat candy bars, the solution isn’t to pass nutrition laws. You have to work with your kid on this.”  stated Waldo Jaquith, founder of www.curfew.org. Not only do curfews restrict a child’s freedom, but they also violate a parent's right to raise their child without state interference. "Teens are shown a fair amount of disrespect and distrust by people. … You shouldn't be allowed to say, 'Teens are bad people so we're going to lock them up after 4 p.m.' " Says Stephen Jenuth. Law-abiding our children to partial house arrest does nothing to protect them. Teen curfews don’t target populations that commit the most crime, thus leading to a waste of police resources. They create inaccurate stereotypes and assumptions and treat innocent youth as criminals.