An order by the government for certain persons to return home before a certain time. It can either be to maintain public order (such as that after the 2003 North America blackout), or to suppress targeted groups (such as the one Adolf Hitler enacted on Jewish people in NaziGermany). Curfews have long been directed at certain groups in many cities or states, such as Japanese-American university students on the West Coast during World War II, African-Americans in many towns during the time of Jim Crow laws, or people under 21, 19, 18, 16 or another certain age in many towns of the U.S. since the 1980s. Some jurisdictions have also proposed "daytime curfews" that would prevent high school-age youth from visiting public places during school hours or even during immediate after-school hours.
An "order" by a person, usually a parent, upon someone, usually under 19, to return home before a certain time, usually from a party or such. This is less formal, but more common.
In baseball, a time after which a game must end, or play be suspended. For example, in the American League the curfew rule for many years decreed that no inning could begin after 1 A.M. local time.
The word comes from Anglo-Norman via Middle English, originally an instruction to cover and damp down the fires before retiring, "couvre feu"; a very necessary precaution when cities were filled with wooden houses having thatched roofs.
Whether enforcement of curfews is related to higher or lower levels of youth crime is examined by means of a standard correlation analysis.
Curfew enforcement is also associated with higher rates of violent crime by Asian youth and with higher rates of all types of arrest (subtracting curfew arrests) among white and Asian youth.
Therefore, since curfews apply to youth and not to adults, we would expect their most obvious effects to be on juvenile death rates net of (compared to) those of adults.
The curfew had been upheld last year in a limited administrative appeal of an individual curfew citation given to David Treacy, and that case is currently on appeal by Treacy to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Curfews have been upheld in Texas and the District of Columbia.
Under the Anchorage municipal curfew ordinance, which took effect January 1, 1996, a minor (under age 18) commits a criminal offense if he or she is in any public place in Anchorage during curfew hours.
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