Writing Feature Articles - Step 1 - Lesson 1 | Page 46

Writing Feature Articles - Lesson
Writing Feature Articles - Handout . a

Experienced

Name: ________________________________________ Date: ___________________

. a: Feature Articles Packet

(page of

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“Teen Curfew?” continued
Would It Reduce Crime?
Several parents I interviewed are in favor of the citywide curfew. They argue that the curfews are necessary to
keep young people out of trouble. They also say that teenagers are more likely to get in trouble late than they
would during daylight. With a curfew, police wouldn’t have to wait for teens to commit crimes before moving
young people indoors.
By keeping young people off the streets at night, parents say curfews will protect teens from becoming victims of
crime.
After curfews were implemented in San Diego, California, violent crime by juveniles dropped by 20 percent and
violent crime against juveniles dropped by 40 percent. In Dallas, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana, juvenile
arrests dropped by about 20 percent after curfews were put in place.
But teens and others who argue against curfews say that the public is misinformed about the number of
crimes committed by teens. A ?ve-year-old report entitled “Off Balance: Youth, Race and Crime in the News”
demonstrated this: 1998 was a year in which violent crime by youth was at its lowest point in 25 years.
Nevertheless, 62 percent of that people surveyed in that year believed that juvenile crime was on the rise.
The study also found that when youth appear in the news it is frequently connected with violence, even though
youth do not commit the majority of violent crimes. A close look at 840 newspaper stories and 109 network news
segments that appeared across the nation in 1993 found that 40 percent of newspaper stories and 48 percent of
television stories about young people were about violence. When it came to children, there was more overall
coverage of crime and violence than of all other policy issues combined, the study found.
Here in New York City, where juvenile arrests accounted for only four percent of the total arrests in 1999, the New
York City Youth Media Watch found that New York Times articles published between January and March 2000
over-represented youth crime and school violence. Moreover, reporters most frequently quoted police about youth
crime, as opposed to teens themselves or the adults in their lives.
It’s hard to tell which came ?rst – the media’s associating youth with violence or the public’s fear of youth in
general. Either way, "In an environment in which fear of youth crime and actual crime are so out of sync,” writers
of the Off-Balance report found, policies affecting young people, like teen curfews, “are bound to be in?uenced."
Would It Increase Safety?
Many parents, like my mother Arelis Morron, say they believe in curfews not because they think their kids are
going to commit crime, but because they worry about their kids’ safety. “It’s very dangerous to be out in the
streets so late at night, especially for young girls,” my mother told me. “There are many men out there who have
perverted thoughts and will not let anything stand in their way to accomplish them.”
I worry about my safety too. Before I met my boyfriend who has a car, when I violated curfew in the past, I ended
up walking the 15 minutes back home from public transportation by myself. I’d get scared and tried to watch for
people who were walking behind me.
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