Do city curfews help prevent violence? Some say they do more harm than good

Curfews are being implemented throughout the United States as cities attempt to curtail protests and rioting that has occurred since the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody last week in Minnesota.

But do they actually help?

What do skeptics say?

Some believe the curfews could bring even more issues. Curfews “can lead to the abuses that are being protested,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

“By making presence on public streets anywhere in these cities unlawful, these measures give police too much discretion over whom to arrest and will lead to selected and biased enforcement and risk harassment of people who are unhoused,” the ACLU said.

New York City council member Ydanis Rodriguez said he is concerned about how his city’s curfew will impact “low-income communities of color,” because many people work and commute to their jobs during the lockdown period, he said on Twitter.

Curfews empower police “to behave repressively in a tense situation,” Andrea Ritchie, a criminal justice researcher at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, told Vox.

“What we know is curfews increase opportunities for police interaction and police violence over time,” she said.

She added to Mother Jones, “Curfews definitely work to increase possibilities for decriminalization and police violence. We can guarantee that they can work for that.”

Many of the curfews have not stopped acts of violence and destruction, according to NBC News.

Implementing curfews could cause tension within police departments, Jennifer Earl, a University of Arizona expert on how police handle protests, told LAist.

“There is a preference for techniques like tear gas, rubber bullets (and) curfews when police supervisors are not sure that they can control their line officers,” she said. “If you can’t control your officers, what you need to do is keep them away from the people.”

How can curfews help?

Some city leaders say the curfews are just as much for bystanders as they are the protesters.

“The curfew really is to keep people from coming to sort of to gawk at what’s going on and keep the looky-loos away,” Sacramento City Councilman Steve Hansen told the Associated Press.

A curfew was ordered between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in Los Angeles “because of the dangers” that can occur at night, according to the county’s sheriff’s department.

“The effects of public calamity caused disaster and extreme peril to the safety of people and property,” the sheriff’s department stated.

If curfews are enforced, they can be effective, former FBI Buffalo supervisor Bernie Tolbert told WBEN.

“The larger the area the curfew covers, the greater amount of time it covers, makes it much more difficult to enforce, because you need resources to do this effectively ... Given time and space, that can be difficult for a municipality,” he told the radio station. “Unless you want to come down in a draconian way with a lot of people, and if you get 500 people for violating curfew and putting 500 people in jail, you don’t have the space to do that.”

Curfews can allow police to separate protesters “from people who wants to cause harm,” Tamara Herold, an assistant professor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, told the Associated Press.

Tolbert added to WBEN the curfews can help prevent agitators from “acting out.”

What do residents say?

A 9 p.m. curfew in Green Bay, Wisconsin makes people “feel even more oppressed,” according to WBAY.

“I feel like this curfew is an example of why they want to protest in the first place, because we’re supposed to be seen and be heard,” protester Dajahnae Williams told the TV station.

Some clients of immigrant attorney Alma Rosa Nieto are fearful of going to work in the night hours, according to LAist.

“(Clients said) ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t stop working. I have to support my family, but I’m scared of fearing arrest or citation,’” Rosa Nieto told LAist.

Many protesters have intentionally defied curfews. It has led to thousands of arrests throughout the country, according to NPR.

Some have been met with tear gas by police before or after curfews began. In Clayton, California, Tamara Steiner was hit with a tear gas canister 30 minutes after the 8 p.m. curfew, according to the Mercury News.

“Nobody wanted a confrontation,” Steiner told the newspaper. “It was a standard protest. They shouted things at the police but nobody made a move. And no one wanted to start trouble.”

This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 8:30 AM.