Comics, Movies, Video Games, and More

"Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

~Ephesians 5:16

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

30 Minute Essays: Should Young People be Subjected to Curfews as a Way to Reduce Crime?

Young people have a pretty bad reputation in this day and age. That's why whenever you see a teen being kind, adults usually say, "Wow, you're very nice." Teens are known in the 21st century as lazy, unfriendly, and rebellious. How often do you hear about a young person bringing a gun to school, or selling drugs? All intelligent parents give their teenage son/daughter curfews when to be home. (Obviously a lot of them aren't followed.) But is making curfew a law really going to make a difference? No, in fact, it would make it quite worse!

Young people are very daring. If they are challenged in an event or simple game, they will usually want to overcome it. Whenever I use to play dodgeball in youth group I would push myself, even when I was physically tired, because I was not going to let myself lose. Now going to the extreme, if curfews become a law, that would only 'challenge' a young person who is already thinking about committing a crime even more to do the wrong thing. For the person that's already involved in crime, that would only make him/her more rebellious, making the crimes more rampant and worse.

While a lot of young people are involved in criminal acts, adults perhaps outweigh them. A crime is committed everyday by an adult. If the government really thinks curfews will reduce crimes, then in that case everyone should have a curfew! That doesn't quite make sense though, does it? Crime is everywhere. Curfews won't make a difference.

There is one positive effect a curfew law can have, if followed. Young people wouldn't be in danger from others looking to harm them outside after midnight. Of course, that's only if it were followed. Another negative however is that by adding a law that's specifically geared toward young people, it further stereotypes. Sure, the government might say a curfew law protects the person from crime, but many will view it as a statement that he/she can't resist committing a felony.

Sadly, the reason why a curfew law would ever be considered is that some parents don't do a great job of keeping their children in their home. Why would a young person resort to committing a crime? There are many factors, but one of them is that he/she was raised in an un-loving, abusive home. A curfew wouldn't fix things, what needs to be fixed is in the home. Parents should always be loving, but strict when a child starts to exhibit any rebellious behavior. That is a way to reduce crime.
____________________________________________________________________________

These 30 minute essays are short writings for practice for my College Composition exam, I call them '30 minute essays' because I have a time limit of 30 minutes to write a response to the topic question.
_____________________________________________________________________________

1 comment:

  1. I definitely agree that curfews wouldn't work. I don't really think that your solution works either but.....no worries. There are no solutions to some problems and it's just one of the sad parts of life. We can just strive to make this world better until we eventually leave it. Besides, curfew would likely destroy the economy! (We'd have to pay security people to enforce the curfew and covering the whole city would be tough)

    ReplyDelete