Youth
Local Child Curfews Guidance Document Working Draft
This guidance contains advice to local authorities and the police on the provision under section 14 and 15 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as amended by sections 48 and 49 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, on the operation of local child curfew schemes. It has been prepared by the Home Office Juvenile Offenders Unit following consultation with local authority Chief Executives, Chief Officers of Police, Directors of Social Services, the Local Government Association and other organisations with an interest in the welfare of children and young people.
What is a local child curfew scheme designed to do?
It aims to protect the local community from anti-social behaviour instigated by groups of young people at night.
It also aims to protect children and young people from the risks involved with being unaccompanied on the streets late at night. These risks also include older children encouraging the young ones into criminal activities, or from adults such as drug dealers or pimps.
Curfews should be used flexibly, and the police or the local authority can decide the area of the curfew, which days of the week and which hours of the night they want to enforce them. It is not intended that curfews should affect children who are going about their genuine business such as returning home from youth clubs, unless they are seen to be at risk. In these circumstances, the local authority/police would need to be aware of the routes home from youth clubs or other legitimate activities, which involve passing through a curfew area.
The scheme gives the police clear powers to take any child found in breach of a local curfew, and who they believe to be at risk, home to their parents. There is no criminal penalty, curfews have been designed solely to protect children, and reduce the risk of them offending or becoming involved in anti-social behaviour.
A similar scheme, which has been set up in Hamilton in Scotland called The Hamilton Child Safety Initiative has received the full support of the majority of parents. Although it is not a curfew, the scheme has proved very successful in reducing youth crime in the area. For an evaluation of the scheme click here.
The Government believes that early intervention before a child becomes involved in crime and starts to identify him/herself as an offender will be more effective than waiting until the child comes before the Criminal Justice System. More has to be done to help prevent children becoming involved in criminal and anti-social behaviour, and what happens to a child in their early years can influence their chances of becoming young offenders.
The Government has therefore reformed the youth justice system to provide:
-
a clear strategy to prevent offending and re-offending
-
opportunity for offenders and their parents to face up to their offending behaviour and take responsibility for it
-
earlier, more effective intervention when young people first offend
-
faster, more efficient procedures from arrest to sentence
-
partnership between all youth justice agencies to deliver a better, faster system
However the overall aim must be to prevent children from falling in to a life of crime in the first place. Local Child Curfews have not yet been used, in particular because the age range has been narrower than that of the typical groups of children out late at night. Additional legislation introduced from 1 August 2001 raises the age limit to 15 and also allows the police as well as the local authority to initiate a curfew scheme.
Local child curfews are not directed at individuals but at known troublespot areas. They are not intended to be used on their own, but should form part of an integrated response to tackling crime and disorder in local areas, providing local authorities and the police with another option when addressing disorder and anti-social behaviours.
Download: Local Child Curfews
Last update: 15/09/03