# Why no curfew in London? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354 "2011-08-11T17:06:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![isaiahrobinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@isaiahrobinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/isaiahrobinson)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/21 "2011-08-13T09:40:15Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I’m from London, you know. The media would have you believe the streets are unsafe to walk on. > > TBF, we were on holiday and only arrived home today, but I do have an awful lot of friends here and everything in my area (Bethnal Green, hardly suburbia) is completely normal. And we would have been prevented from getting home if there were a curfew. The streets in the affected areas _were_ unsafe to walk on. Bethnal Green wasn’t affected. In fact, 99% of streets in London weren’t affected. But on the ones that were the disturbances were quite serious, and the places that saw rioting almost seemed be chosen at random. Fine, you came back after it all died down and thought “this isn’t scary” - by that point it wasn’t. But if you’re sitting at home at midnight watching images of people having to jump from burning buildings - seemingly chosen at random - and various streets being torn up all across London, with the police overwhelmed, it’s worrying. And being in those affected areas felt exactly as it looked on the news. If you thought you’d literally be coming home to find the entire city lying in smoking ruins you weren’t following the coverage very closely - the media was very clear about which areas were affected and to what extent. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/22 "2011-08-13T14:41:46Z")
Do we have a thread that discusses what these riots were about? My usual tack of listening to NPR for my news led me to conclude that the cause isn’t clear-cut, and I’d appreciate a Doper commentary. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/23 "2011-08-13T15:14:04Z")
To the OP It simply was not bad enough to justify such actions. It could have gotten that bad; but did not. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/24 "2011-08-13T15:18:49Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Do we have a thread that discusses what these riots were about? > My usual tack of listening to NPR for my news led me to conclude that the cause isn’t clear-cut, and I’d appreciate a Doper commentary. At least three: one in the [Great Debates](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=619663) and two in the BBQ Pit, one to [slag off the rioters](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=619557) and one to [attack the justice system](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=620098). ---
**Author:** ![isaiahrobinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@isaiahrobinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/isaiahrobinson)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/25 "2011-08-13T15:28:26Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Do we have a thread that discusses what these riots were about? > My usual tack of listening to NPR for my news led me to conclude that the cause isn’t clear-cut, and I’d appreciate a Doper commentary. Initially there were protests in an area called Tottenham in north London over the shooting of a 29-year-old black man called Mark Duggan by police. Duggan was in a minicab when officers from the Trident unit - a unit that specifically deals with drug crimes amongst the black community - made contact with him, and they ended up shooting him twice, killing him. Initial reports claimed he had a gun and fired at police but a later investigation concluded he did not have a weapon. There were non-violent protests amongst the local community on the first night, although some disorder and looting broke out. On the second night there was disorder in both Tottenham and Brixton. On the third night areas across the whole of London kicked off - as far north as Enfield, as far south as Croydon, west to Ealing and east to Romford. [This](http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=207192798388318292131.0004aa01af6748773e8f7) map catalogues all the instances of disturbances. On the fourth night there was huge extra police presence in London and things were generally quiet there, but similar rioting took place in other cities, particularly in Manchester and the West Midlands. As far as the reason behind it, no one’s really sure. The initial protests in Tottenham were over Mark Duggan’s death but once it spread to Brixton, and certainly once it spread across the rest of the city, it had nothing to do with that. That was just the spark. There’s been lots of other explanations but none of them seem particularly convincing. Some say it’s about race, but you can clearly see in the photos and videos that as many of the rioters were white as they were black. None of the rioters express coherent political reasons, and the was no logic to which targets were attacked (baby’s clothes shops and small furniture stores were attacked just as often as banks). Opponents of the government have said it’s about the recent government spending cuts to things like youth centres but while those may have contributed a bit, it seems a massive stretch to say that’s the main cause. Some say it’s about unemployment although a lot of the rioters told media they were “getting their taxes back” when they were stealing things, which implies they do pay tax! A lot of the rioters simply said it was “fun” or that they were doing it “to show the police we can”. Some blamed the rich. Some even said they didn’t even know why they got involved and regretted it. I think the likely answer is that there’s a bad economic environment, with high unemployment, few job opportunities and government spending cuts, all of which have hit young people particularly hard. Couple that with a situation in which the police seemed to be stretched and overwhelmed as they struggled to the deal with the initial protests, and a significant, but still relatively small number of rioters in the grand scheme of things, saw an opportunity to take advantage. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/26 "2011-08-13T19:47:53Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > It would. And to put the original question in perspective (although I cannot tell where the OP is from), curfews are very common in the US. For example, Georgia has a curfew for under 18s in normal times, let alone when there is rioting. My opinions on this fact are not appropriate for this forum. I don’t see what’s unusual on that, though we don’t call it “curfew”, but “[youth protection law](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugendschutzgesetz_(Deutschland))”: if you’re under 18, you are not allowed to be in a cinema, a public dance, a pub/ disco without your parental person later than 12 pm. If you’re under 16, you have to be home by 10 pm, under 14, 8 pm. Makes sense to me - young teens shouldn’t be up late at night without their parents because they need their sleep and have to get up early for school next day and hanging out in dance discos or nightclubs isn’t positive for their development. And the movies shown in the cinemas late at night aren’t teen-suited, either. (Funnily enough, wiki says that contrary to public perception, the law doesn’t say anything about teens being out on the street, only cinemas, pubs/ restaurants and dance clubs, though there is thinking being done about changing that). If the parents are present, they still shouldn’t be out regularly in the wee hours, because they still need their sleep; but with parents present, it’s the right of the parents to make a decision regarding exceptional occasions. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/27 "2011-08-13T20:01:03Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I don’t see what’s unusual on that, Which is exactly my point - Americans making the suggestion do not see it as unusual. Brits do. Hence there is a cultural difference to consider when addressing the question. (I was guessing that the original question came from an American.) > [@](#): > > though we don’t call it “curfew”, Who is “we”? The states’ statutes may not use the word (I don’t know - I am certainly not going to check all the states), but use of the word"curfew" is very common. It occurs 27 times on the [georgia.gov](http://georgia.gov) web site, for example, according to Google. ---
**Author:** ![nudgenudge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9f8e36/32.png) [@nudgenudge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nudgenudge)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/28 "2011-08-13T20:13:11Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I don’t see what’s unusual on that, though we don’t call it “curfew”, but “[youth protection law](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugendschutzgesetz_(Deutschland))”: if you’re under 18, you are not allowed to be in a cinema, a public dance, a pub/ disco without your parental person later than 12 pm. If you’re under 16, you have to be home by 10 pm, under 14, 8 pm. Makes sense to me - young teens shouldn’t be up late at night without their parents because they need their sleep and have to get up early for school next day and hanging out in dance discos or nightclubs isn’t positive for their development. And the movies shown in the cinemas late at night aren’t teen-suited, either. (Funnily enough, wiki says that contrary to public perception, the law doesn’t say anything about teens being out on the street, only cinemas, pubs/ restaurants and dance clubs, though there is thinking being done about changing that). > > If the parents are present, they still shouldn’t be out regularly in the wee hours, because they still need their sleep; but with parents present, it’s the right of the parents to make a decision regarding exceptional occasions. I am surprised to learn of such legal interference in the daily lives of citizens, albeit young citizens. No, it is probably not a good idea for children to stay out all night at “public dances”, but the idea of having an actual law to enforce it seems bizarre. The children that the law is aimed at will just ignore it, while the nicer kids are probably already subject to parental discipline. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/29 "2011-08-13T21:07:47Z")
Curfews for society in general is a lot different than curfew for adults. From what I’ve seen in the U.S. there are two types of curfews for minors; you won’t be able to distinguish them based on statute because the text of the ordinances will be very similar: 1. Curfews to control common hooliganism up to and including gang activity. In really bad neighborhoods you have young kids who are recruited by major gangs at a very young age. They are often used to handle the physical delivery of drugs in drug deals and things of that nature (the dealer will be an adult who receives the money, then the buyer walks down the street and picks the drugs up from a young child–the child is too young to go to prison.) In these communities curfew are an attempt to take these young children off the street so they at least cannot be used to the benefit of the gangs, and the hope is by trying to keep them off the street you can keep them out of the gangs entirely. In practice of course enforcement is difficult and spotty so kids still join gangs in bad inner city neighborhoods. 2. Curfews to make police babysit kids. In suburbs and such, parents might push for curfew laws so that they can essentially have the police doing their job for them, picking their kids up when they sneak out at night and returning them to home. It’s easier than the parent having to pay attention to their kid at all times. In cities with real crime problems police won’t be involved in this kind of thing as much, but in certain suburban communities police might spend a large portion of night shifts essentially wrangling misbehaving teens up for parents and returning them home. Both of these are dramatically different from societal-wide curfews, these laws are mostly designed, at least in theory, for the protection of legal minors. Curfews on everyone would be a major civil liberties issue here just like it would in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/30 "2011-08-13T22:41:22Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Curfews for society in general is a lot different than curfew for adults. > > From what I’ve seen in the U.S. there are two types of curfews for minors; you won’t be able to distinguish them based on statute because the text of the ordinances will be very similar: > > 1. Curfews to control common hooliganism up to and including gang activity. In really bad neighborhoods you have young kids who are recruited by major gangs at a very young age. They are often used to handle the physical delivery of drugs in drug deals and things of that nature (the dealer will be an adult who receives the money, then the buyer walks down the street and picks the drugs up from a young child–the child is too young to go to prison.) In these communities curfew are an attempt to take these young children off the street so they at least cannot be used to the benefit of the gangs, and the hope is by trying to keep them off the street you can keep them out of the gangs entirely. In practice of course enforcement is difficult and spotty so kids still join gangs in bad inner city neighborhoods. > > 2. Curfews to make police babysit kids. In suburbs and such, parents might push for curfew laws so that they can essentially have the police doing their job for them, picking their kids up when they sneak out at night and returning them to home. It’s easier than the parent having to pay attention to their kid at all times. In cities with real crime problems police won’t be involved in this kind of thing as much, but in certain suburban communities police might spend a large portion of night shifts essentially wrangling misbehaving teens up for parents and returning them home. > > Both of these are dramatically different from societal-wide curfews, these laws are mostly designed, at least in theory, for the protection of legal minors. Curfews on everyone would be a major civil liberties issue here just like it would in the UK. The same thing in the U.K. children below the age of criminal consent, which means that they can’t be prosecuted for anything, including murder, are employed routinely to deliver drugs. Useully Cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/31 "2011-08-14T01:16:03Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > The streets in the affected areas _were_ unsafe to walk on. Bethnal Green wasn’t affected. In fact, 99% of streets in London weren’t affected. But on the ones that were the disturbances were quite serious, and the places that saw rioting almost seemed be chosen at random. Fine, you came back after it all died down and thought “this isn’t scary” - by that point it wasn’t. But if you’re sitting at home at midnight watching images of people having to jump from burning buildings - seemingly chosen at random - and various streets being torn up all across London, with the police overwhelmed, it’s worrying. And being in those affected areas felt exactly as it looked on the news. If you thought you’d literally be coming home to find the entire city lying in smoking ruins you weren’t following the coverage very closely - the media was very clear about which areas were affected and to what extent. You seem to think you’re disagreeing with me, but you’re saying exactly the same as me. I _didn’t_ expect to come home to smoking ruins, but all the Americans I talked thought I was, because that was what it looked like in the media over there. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/32 "2011-08-14T01:18:15Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > The same thing in the U.K. children below the age of criminal consent, which means that they can’t be prosecuted for anything, including murder, are employed routinely to deliver drugs. > > Useully Cocaine. The age of criminal culapbility is 10 and kids that young have been prosecuted for murder (the Bulger killers). It’s true that kids will get in a lot less trouble, but I think that’s true everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/33 "2011-08-14T02:20:13Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > And to put the original question in perspective (although I cannot tell where the OP is from), curfews are very common in the US. I’m from the US. Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to get into the issue of general curfews, which as you say are used in scattered places across the US. I was more interested in the idea of a curfew as a crisis management tool. They did this in France in 2005, although clearly what happened there was on a much larger scale. It was also employed during the Cincinnati riots of 2001, and the Los Angeles riots in 1992. I just assumed that this was one of the first things out of the riot management textbook, but perhaps \*\*AK84 \*\*is correct that things didn’t get bad enough to warrant a curfew. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/34 "2011-08-14T17:54:29Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > The age of criminal culapbility is 10 and kids that young have been prosecuted for murder (the Bulger killers). It’s true that kids will get in a lot less trouble, but I think that’s true everywhere. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were both 10 when they killed James Bulger. I think you may be right that children younger than ten have been prosecuted but I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/35 "2011-08-14T19:48:23Z")
> [@rekkah](#): > > Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were both 10 when they killed James Bulger. I think you may be right that children younger than ten have been prosecuted but I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. You misread me - I said that kids that young have been prosecuted for murder, not kids younger than that. ---
**Author:** ![rekkah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee59a6/32.png) [@rekkah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rekkah)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/36 "2011-08-14T21:54:18Z")
Oh yes, sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![isaiahrobinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@isaiahrobinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/isaiahrobinson)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/37 "2011-08-14T22:09:25Z")
> [@rekkah](#): > > Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were both 10 when they killed James Bulger. I think you may be right that children younger than ten have been prosecuted but I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. Children under ten can’t be prosecuted under English law: the Children and Young Person’s Act 1963 set up what’s called an “irrebuttable presumption” that children under the age of ten cannot have formed the mental state required to commit a crime. An irrebuttable presumption means that it’s technically merely ‘presumed’, but no evidence to the contrary can ever rebut that presumption so in practice it’s just the law. Between the ages of 10 and 14 there’s a “_rebuttable_ presumption” that the child couldn’t have formed the required mental state - which, clearly, means that the court will presume it but it will allow the prosecution to try and prove otherwise with evidence. In the Bulger case the prosecution successfully rebutted the presumption, but if Venables and Thompson had been a year younger they wouldn’t have been allowed to. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354/38 "2011-08-15T04:14:00Z")
> [@isaiahrobinson](#): > > Initial reports claimed he had a gun and fired at police but a later investigation concluded he did not have a weapon. Half right. He did have a weapon, but initial tests found no evidence that it had been fired. [Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mark_Duggan): > [@](#): > > Friends and relatives of Duggan claimed that he was unarmed, but a loaded Bruni BBM blank-firing self-loading (semi-automatic) pistol, illegally converted to fire live ammunition, was recovered from the scene. The IPCC announced on 9 August that there was no evidence that this weapon had been fired, but that this had not been ruled out and further tests were being conducted [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-curfew-in-london/592354.md?page=1)