In response to a proposal to adopt a juvenile daytime curfew, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin has condemned the proposal as a bad substitute for good schools. The ACLU says students belong in school, but there are too many exceptions to allow a curfew that will undoubtedly harm innocent children, their parents, and young-looking adults. This is not a tool to get at truancy directly, so much as an excuse for police to stop all youths and young-looking adults. Police will have no probable cause to determine that someone is truant rather than on their way to a job, a medical appointment, or their grandmother's funeral. The police will be given the discretion to presume any youth or young-looking adult is guilty, and should be stopped, on the basis of their appearance , said Chris Ahmuty, Executive Director, ACLU of Wisconsin.
Daytime curfews are impractical and take away from effective police work.
If one studies this proposal carefully it is not as simple as it seems at first glance , Leiker continued. One city in California required home school students to register with the police and to possess orange tags with numbers on them when in public during the day for identification purposes. It was also suggested that the students wear these tags around their necks in plain view to avoid any suspicious movement when coming into contact with police , Leiker said. The argument that parents need this curfew as a means to control their children is disingenuous at best. The argument could just as easily be made that the threat of a fine, which will usually come out of a parent's pocketbook, will give undisciplined teenagers a tool to threaten their parents into falsely saying the delinquent had a good reason not to be in school , Chris Ahmuty added.