These laws are on the books in a number of municipalities. I have serious constitutional issues with them, as did the Supreme Court.

Yeah, while I appreciate the need to address the problems jbr cites, I don't favor teen curfews as the device to address them either, Steve.

At the time my two entered high school, their curfews were 10 pm weeknights and 11 pm weekends. During their senior years, we loosened up and allowed 11 pm weeknights and 12 pm weekends.

The reason we loosened up in their senior years is that we had begun taking college campus tours and had learned that once on campus (as a 17 year-old and an 18 year-old respectively), they would enjoy a 2 am curfew, if living in a dorm. They'd have no curfew if living off-campus, of course. We didn't want them to go hog wild once they landed on campus (to the detriment of their grades), so we decided to afford them this slightly more liberal "right," only to ensure they'd be aware of its corresponding "responsibility" in terms of their unchanged obligations to school and work.

In short, I think we'd be mistaken to hold out that 2 am curfew like forbidden fruit available to them only after high school. Kids need some kind of transition in their curfew in the months and years before they enjoy such broader personal freedoms?

And really, isn't the task simply to better ensure that when teens are out without parental supervision, they don't engage in public fights or create auto accidents at any hour?

I don't know squat about juvenile law but there is either a state law or county ordinance for curfews and I think under 16 it is 11 pm and over 16 it is 12 am (obv 18 and up, adult/no curfew).

And I have absolutely no problem with that. Juveniles don't have the same rights as adults and anybody who has ever lived with one should understand why. Like my old man (a cop) used to say, Nothing good happens after midnight. I let my kid stay out past midnight on the Fourth b/c he was out bowling with friends after the fireworks. It was a special occasion, and sometimes we flout the public rules.

I know some parents are more permissive, but my view is there is no reason any 16 y/o needs to be out that late in most circumstances. If they want to stay out late, they'll have to learn to sneak around like my generation did, behind our parents' backs. It helps build a healthy sense of the right occasion for defying authority, it exercises one's faculties for strategy, and encourages versatility of thinking. Just don't get caught.

Tenn. Code Ann. §39-17-1702 is the state statute.
Can't link directly, but you can run it down on Lexis-Nexis.
~m.

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

-allegedly attributed to Socrates by Plato

It is more common than I thought.

from WYFF in Greeneville, SC …

No one under the age of 18 can be in the central business district after 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights without a parent or legal guardian present.

Police remind teens of Downtown Greenville curfew

West Palm Beach

Mobile

etc.