Teen curfews

[Gabu]

Teen curfews are yet another attempt by deadbeat parents to get the government to do their job for them.

No, I don't support them.

[Gabu]

Teen curfews are yet another attempt by deadbeat parents to get the government to do their job for them.

No, I don't support them.

Actually, the type of parents you talk about don't care whether their kids are out or not.

Teen curfews are generally sought by people in troubled communities that are being plagued by teen crime/vandalism because of the deadbeat parents that you talk about.  They want the government to step in and protect them because the parents aren't doing the job.

If teens are statistically more likely to cause crime in the small hours of the night, why is that a good reason to force all teens not to be out past some arbitrary time?

Blacks are statistically more likely to cause crime too.  Should we have a "black people curfew"?

[Gabu]

There really isn't a legitimate basis to regulate behavior on the basis of race or gender.

Why?  Blacks are, if I recall correctly, something like four times more likely as whites to commit crimes.  If we're working on the basis of statistical likelihood, that's a rather strong one.

[Gabu]

Actually, it's more like ten times.

But under the constitution, there is no right to have different laws for people based on race.  That constitutional provision for equal laws is something I strongly support.

But the arguments in favor of teen curfews rely heavily on the fact that teens are statistically more likely to commit crimes.  My point was mainly just that I don't see how someone can support teen curfews while not supporting curfews for black people, as the principles are the same.  There just seems to be this sort of "okayness" for supporting things that affect all of teenagers that loses its "okayness" when the discrimination is generalized to something other than age-based discrimination, and I don't quite understand why.

[Gabu]

As I said earlier, I'm not necessarily a supporter of curfews.

I didn't say you were, which is why I said "someone" and not "you".

But there is a strong basis in the law for differentiating rights based upon age.  It makes some sense.  Minors don't have full responsibilities or full rights.  A minor can get arrested for not being in school during the day, technically.  And sometimes it happens.

Age can have some bearing on what types of activities people are prepared to engage in, and the level of freedom that they should have.  Ideally, the curfew issue should be handled by parents, but as we know, some parents are deadbeats, and the rest of society suffers as a result.

I think there is a real difference between limiting people's rights based on age, and based on gender.  You could argue that Asians are bad drivers, but would it be appropriate to pass a law not allowing them to drive?  Now replace that with a 5-year-old....of course, our laws already prohibit 5-year-olds from driving.  There is a big difference.

The difference is huge between restricting a 5-year-old from driving and restricting a teenager from going out at night.  There is an inherent inability of a 5-year-old to drive a car due to the size and mental capacity (or lack thereof) of the child.

On the other hand, however, there is nothing inherent in teenagers that makes them all violent.  I have a strong feeling that the correlation between being black and committing violent crimes is probably even higher than the correlation between being a teenager and committing violent crime.  Which brings me back to my question: why is it okay to restrict teenagers based on statistics while it is not okay to restrict black people based on statistics?  It's one thing if there's something inherent in someone's physical or mental capacity at that age that would not be the case in an adult, but that is not the case here.  People can be violent and commit crimes at any age.

[Gabu]

Technically, it's not by statistics, but by (a) assumed level of maturity; and (b) lack of full rights by virtue of being a minor.

The fact that minors have other rights restricted is not a justification to restrict all of their rights.

In reality of course, statistics have something to do with it, but there are other reasons and justifications for restricting teenagers.

Which are... what?

Assumed level of maturity has a lot to do with restricting driving, voting, drinking, etc.  A 10-year-old is physically capable of voting, but not allowed to.  A 13-year-old is physically capable of driving, but not allowed to.  And certainly, the body of most 15-year-olds can handle alcohol, but they're not allowed to drink.

Your entire argument seems to be "minors are restricted elsewhere, so it's justifiable to restrict them here as well."  I don't see how that makes any logical sense whatsoever.  Describing the current state of affairs does not form an argument regarding why something ought to be.  That would be like me saying, "I oppose the tax cut because the tax rate should be 10%.  I believe the tax rate should be 10% because it is currently 10%."

[Gabu]

I'll give it one more try.

The concept of restricting rights based upon age has precedent that is still accepted.

The concept of restricting rights based on race or gender has precedent, but that is no longer accepted.

If you want to argue that restrictions based on age shouldn't be accepted, that's a different issue, but you'd have an uphill battle there.  The trend has actually been moving in the opposite direction.

Okay, but we seem to be talking about two different things.  I'm talking about the logical justifiability of a policy.  You're talking about the political justifiability of a policy.  In an ideal world, the two would perfectly coincide, but this is not exactly an ideal world.

[Gabu]

Gabu, while logic is admirable I think you would generally do well if you allowed some common sense in arguments. I think Dazzleman is assuming that he doesn't have to argue in favour of restrictions based on age, because almost everyone accept them. You can always question the logical basis of any opinion and gradually work your way towards some axiom which just "is" and can either be refuted or agreed with depending on your taste. Doing this in every argument is generally tiresome and doesn't necessarily contribute anything.

How am I not allowing common sense?  I laid out a clear argument regarding why I don't feel that precedent has any weight in this particular case and have received no counter-arguments other than "well, that's the way things are".  You can't refute an argument by just noting that the argument is only held by a minority and therefore act as if that justifies things.

[Gabu]

So are you seriously suggesting that all age limits be abolished? The case you're making could be made for any age restriction.

I've already addressed this in an earlier post:

The difference is huge between restricting a 5-year-old from driving and restricting a teenager from going out at night.  There is an inherent inability of a 5-year-old to drive a car due to the size and mental capacity (or lack thereof) of the child.

On the other hand, however, there is nothing inherent in teenagers that makes them all violent.  I have a strong feeling that the correlation between being black and committing violent crimes is probably even higher than the correlation between being a teenager and committing violent crime.  Which brings me back to my question: why is it okay to restrict teenagers based on statistics while it is not okay to restrict black people based on statistics?

I have no problems with age restrictions if the person is being restricted based on some innate mental or physical limitation that is guaranteed to be present in someone of that age.  For example, no 5-year-old would be physically capable of driving, and the number of 10-year-olds mentally capable of understanding enough to be able to vote in an informed way is so small as to be insignificant.

No such thing is present in teenagers that links them to violence, however.  They are not all violent; they are simply statistically more likely to be violent than middle aged or elderly people - just as black people are statistically more likely to be violent than white people, which was my original point.

[Gabu]

Ah, but you're escaping the problem here. Sure, no 5-year olds are capable of driving. But the driving age isn't 5, it's 18 (in most countries). And a ton of 17-year olds are fully capable of driving. The same goes for voting. ANd so on and so on.

There is never a guarantee of it being present. Either you draw a line or you don't, and if you do some people are bound to end up on the wrong side.

That could be interpreted just as easily as an argument in favor of lowered driving ages, but I digress.

The thing about driving, though, is that it's not really comparable to the issue of teen violence, anyway.  It's clear that during some time period, a person makes the transition from being physically and mentally unable to drive to being physically and mentally able to drive and that this transition occurs for every human being.  This is not at all true with the subject of teen violence.  There's no physical or mental limitation at all being taken into account under the restriction.  Everyone is capable at any age of both being violent and not being violent.  The restriction is entirely based on the fact that teenagers are simply statistically more likely to be violent than older people (and I could also note that the age group of 20-24 has actually a higher degree of violent crime associated with it than the age group of 10-19).

[Gabu]

I'm confused now. Is your claim that there is no causation between youth and violence? I could add that everyone is capable at any age of both being able to vote/drive and not being able to vote/drive. Before you throw 5-year olds at me I hope you're not claiming that infants can be violent.

No.  My claim is that there is no innate physical or mental limitation that makes all or all but an insignificant number of teenagers violent - and, as a result, that there is no justification to slap a curfew onto all teenagers when only a minority of teenagers (and it is a minority) actually engage in any sort of violent crime.

I looked it up and black people are seven times as likely as white people to commit violent crimes.  Hispanic people are three times as likely.  As such, there's a much stronger correlation between being non-white and committing violent crime than between being young and committing violent crime.  Why don't we apply a curfew on non-white people?  That would probably make crime rates go down as well, likely to a larger degree than teen curfews.

[Gabu]

Gabu et al,

I don't believe that curfews are in place because of violence, necessarily, just criminal behavior in general.  And though perhaps it's true that teenagers have no natural inclination towards violence specifically, it is true that we are more likely to make irrational and/or unplanned actions.  This is because our frontal lobes (the part of the brain that plans and coordinates behavior) are less developed, meaning we are less likely to reason out our actions and will instead depend more on the more developed regions of our brain, such as emotional centers and the like.  Though not inherently criminal or violent, it's easy to see how doing such things could translate into criminal or violent behavior; whereas an adult might think about the consequences of his actions before, say, keying an enemy's car or getting involved in a nasty fight, teenagers will be more likely to live in the moment.

The Sydney Morning Herald had an article about this, the Boston Globe's article on a local seminar has some more information, and of course Wikipedia is always your friend.

I'm surprised no one else brought this up.

Either way, I still don't see how an increased statistical tendency towards either violence or criminal behavior in general justifies forcing them all to be in after a certain time.  I doubt even a majority of teenagers partake in criminal behavior.