Curfew for Juveniles: An Exploration of Its Practice in Four Major Cities of the United States Having Populations of a Million and Over, With a View Towards Its Adoption in New York City, 1955 to 1959
Abstract
Background of the Study. One of the delinquency control mechanisms constantly placed before the public when it becomes concerned about youth misbehavior is a curfew law. Because of the misunderstanding and sometimes questionable features of such legislation, it behooves us to examine this subject closely to determine the social and legal aspects involved in it. The curfew has been with man in one form or another since time immemorial. In the course of doing our research on the subject, we were quite amazed to find that there are many prominent citizens throughout the country who have conflicting views on the need and the practice of the juvenile curfew. However while quoting some of these individuals from time to time, we shall attempt to be guided as often as possible by statistics validly compiled and by expert opinions when the need arises. For our purposes, we are mainly interested in the curfew as it is presently enforced in four, major, American cities. These are Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Detroit, all of which have in common the fact that their populations are in excess of one million each. That leaves only one other American city with a population in excess of one million not having a curfew law and this is New York City which interestingly enough is the largest city of them all population-wise. However just because these cities will receive the major portion of attention in our study, it does not mean that they are the only ones in our country needing a curfew or already having one to enforce.
Subject Area
Social research|Social studies education|Statistics|Social work
Recommended Citation
Horgan, Christopher John, "Curfew for Juveniles: An Exploration of Its Practice in Four Major Cities of the United States Having Populations of a Million and Over, With a View Towards Its Adoption in New York City, 1955 to 1959" (1962). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30670809.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30670809
