Instead of driving past students who were on the streets during school hours, the department instructed officers to stop and ask why they were not in school. This resulted in more contact with students who were discovered to be truant, and on occasion involved in gang activity and crime. Monrovia points to a study by the United States Conference of Mayors, in 1997, which surveyed 72 cities across the nation with daytime curfews. Every one of 72 cities reported that curfews cut down truancy and reduced daytime burglaries, by keeping children in school, and holding their parents accountable. But Dan Macallair, of the Justice Policy Institute, says that the survey of teenage curfews in California demonstrates that they are not the answer to juvenile offending.
Curfews have more to do with symbolic politics than rational policy.
If you do the analysis, the claims about curfews simply don t hold up, suggesting it is done more for political purposes than for good public policy. Essentially what we need are more things for kids to do. Kids are bored. There are not enough services for kids, there are not enough resources for kids, and most importantly there aren t enough recreational activities for kids.