Are curfews effective in terms of keeping teens out of trouble?

I arrived in Hamilton, a town in Scotland. I stayed at a local award-winning hotel. My room was in an "annex", about 70 yards from the main entrance. I parked up, as close as I could to the annex entrance, and opened the front door, there was another locked door inside. I eventually got that one opened and found my room. I dumped my bags inside and went back to my car.

It had been broken into in the 6 or 7 minutes that I had been away from it and many things (including my laptop) had been stolen.

Why am I telling you all this?

Hamilton (where I was) was at that time the only town in the UK where a "curfew" was in place.

Apparently my car was probably trashed by 10 or 11 year olds, from a local housing estate and not "street" at all (or likely to care about curfews).

Curfews are usually pointless anyway, unless you have at least as many people to enforce them as there are likely to be breaking them.

Incidentally, I was called to give evidence against a 15-year-old who was found in possession of my laptop. I travelled to Glasgow, reported to the court to be told that the accused had absconded.

The Procurator Fiscal's office paid me £76 for my trouble.

I had a half written book on that laptop.....

I never thought so. I never paid attention to them when I was a kid. I don't think they're effective one bit as most parents just don't keep good enough track of their kids anyway.

no.

No, I don't think they are effective. Some kids have no problem abiding by the curfew time. However, you will get the other kids that think that rules don't apply to them so no matter what you do, they will find another way to do what they want.

Are you talking about personal curfews or municipality curfews? Personal ones depends on the parent and the teen. My mother was strict about our curfew. If we didn't make curfew and be home on time, we got grounded and couldn't go out at all. The teens I knew who got in trouble either had no curfew or a parent who didn't enforce one. They would also find trouble at anytime, so a curfew wouldn't have stopped them.

As for a town or city curfew, they can be. I lived near a city that was having a problem with teens fighting in the streets on weekend nights. They enacted a curfew for 10 pm. The first time a kid got caught, the parent had to come pick them up for the police station. The second time the parent was fined. Third time the fine was increased.

For some it only forces them to rebell.