Reclaiming the street: the discourse of curfew

The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act enables local authorities to put in place l ocal street curfews for children aged under 10 years. The Act has been fuel led by discourses which present a vision of a society escalating towards la wlessness and moral decline. Curfew orders are grounded on the exclusionary principles of control and deterrence. We argue that the case for curfews i s much less clear than recent policy documents suggest. Evidence based upon a large-scale study points to a more positive role of streets in the lives of young people than is acknowledged in current discussions. We propose th at curfew does not offer a way forward: for young people it reinforces a se nse of powerlessness and alienation and for adults it establishes a positio nality which further dislocates young people from their world. Throughout t he curfew debate there has been no attempt to incorporate the views of youn g people. We propose that, instead of curfew, what is needed are inclusiona ry strategies which encourage the incorporation of young people into commun ities, empower their voices in environmental decisionmaking, and challenge the hegemony of adulthood upon the landscape.