D.C. wants to stop kids from gathering at night

At some point before this weekend, large yellow signs are likely to pop up in a “hot spot” D.C. neighborhood warning kids to, well, stay away – at least after 8 p.m. The extended curfew is part of a new policy pushed by Mayor Muriel Bowser and adopted by the D.C. Council to manage what some say is a worrying uptick in mobs of juveniles causing trouble late at night.

But a youth curfew is not new, much less are the concerns over what kids might be doing at night. Below is everything you need to know about D.C.’s curfews, new and old, and whether or not they accomplish anything.

What’s the current curfew for youth in D.C.?

Under the emergency bill approved by the council earlier this month, anyone under the age of 18 can’t be out and about from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day through Aug. 31. The rest of the year, the curfew is the same on weeknights, but begins at midnight on weekends; it will continue to apply to kids under the age of 17.

More notably, the new law also gives D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith the power to designate temporary ”extended juvenile curfew zones” where the curfew starts even earlier, and runs for four days at a time. In those areas, a gathering of nine or more kids under the age of 18 is unlawful after 8 p.m., though police have to give two verbal warnings to disperse the group before they can make arrests. 

The first such zone was designated last weekend in Navy Yard, and the idea came from similar temporary drug-free zones that MPD has been able to declare since last year. It was also initially tested at The Wharf over Memorial Day weekend, largely in response to an incident the weekend before where a large group of juveniles created havoc that resulted in 6 arrests.

So far, it has just been one at a time, but police can set up as many zones as they deem necessary – they just need to give advance notice.  

What happens if a juvenile is caught out after curfew? How often does it happen?

Generally speaking, the kid is taken to a D.C. facility – sometimes a police station, other times a Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services facility – until they can be picked up by a parent or guardian. The law also allows them to be ordered to perform up to 25 hours of community service, and for their parent or guardian to be fined up to $500. (These punishments aren’t often meted out.)

According to D.C. data, during the entire fiscal year 2024 some 76 juveniles were taken into custody for violating curfew. (Of those, 45 were released to a parent or guardian, 25 were transferred to the Child and Family Services Agency, and the remaining six were released to the custody of DYRS.) 

Throughout 2025, MPD has only picked up a handful of kids at a time for curfew violations. During one week in mid-May it was 11 kids; during another week in early June it was 10.

Are there any exceptions to the curfew?

Yes. Kids are allowed to be out past curfew if they are with a parent or guardian, running an errand for their family, standing in front of or near their house, attending a school or religious event, and other situations. 

Why did city officials implement the new rules?

Over at least the last two years, D.C. officials have been concerned with the overall spike in violent crime, and the related increase in juvenile crime – and victims. They’ve additionally been critical of incidents where large numbers of juveniles gather in a specific place and cause trouble; Navy Yard and U Street have been recent targets. 

One new motivating factor has been social media. City officials have said that large-scale mobs organized on social media pose a new challenge, and that the new expanded curfew zones are supposed to give police new tools to help deal with them.

Is a youth curfew new for D.C.?

Not at all. Variations of a curfew for kids go back to before D.C. gained home rule in the mid-1970s, with the underlying rationale being similar to today: groups of kids causing trouble late at night, often during the summer months.

The current youth curfew, though, dates back to the mid-1990s, when the council ordered kids under the age of 17 to be home before 11 p.m. on weeknights and midnight on weekends. That curfew was challenged by the ACLU, which argued that it was an unconstitutional infringement of a person’s ability to freely move about the city – even if they were a minor. A panel of federal judges agreed, but that ruling was eventually overturned and the curfew was allowed to take effect in 1999.

Amidst a spike in violent crime in 2006, though, the council imposed a stiffer temporary youth curfew for the summer months, requiring anyone under the age of 18 be off the streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. (In 2007 and 2010, a pair of councilmembers also unsuccessfully pushed for similar expanded youth curfews).

Active enforcement of the youth curfew, though, has ebbed and flowed. It was only in 2023 – when violent crime and homicides spiked in D.C. – that Bowser said police would proactively enforce the longstanding curfew, with a particular emphasis on eight neighborhoods (including Chinatown, Navy Yard, U Street, portions of 14th Street in Columbia Heights, and Congress Heights) where police said data showed juveniles often congregate.

Do our neighbors have similar curfews?

Yes, and part of what D.C. is now doing was influenced by them. Last year – after similar incidents involving large groups of kids – Prince George’s County imposed a 5 p.m. weekend curfew on kids under the age of 17 at National Harbor; the curfew was implemented again this year. (The city of Laurel also recently imposed its own 11 p.m. youth curfew.) 

Do curfews, you know, actually work?

Well, it’s complicated.

For years, critics have argued that curfews don’t actually make much of a dent in juvenile crime statistics. A 2003 study on D.C.’s juvenile curfew largely backed that up. And a 2014 study found that shootings actually went up during D.C.’s curfew hours, potentially because there were fewer people out and about who might provide a deterrent effect. 

During the mid-1990s, ACLU for D.C. legal director Art Spitzer told The Washington Post that a possible curfew violation won’t dissuade someone looking to commit a crime from doing so. "It is simply absurd to think that a teenager who is selling drugs or carrying a firearm – crimes for which he could face years in custody – will rush home at 11 p.m. to avoid violating a curfew law that has a maximum penalty of a $500 fine,” he said. 

What a curfew could do, though, is take kids who are just being (maybe rowdy) kids and put them into direct contact with the criminal justice system. MPD Chief Pamela Smith says the point isn’t to arrest kids, but rather make sure they’re not put in harm’s way out on the streets.

Curfews could also serve as something of a signaling tool, a loud reminder to parents that they should be aware of where their kids are at night. “Everybody is interested in more parental accountability,” Bowser said earlier this month. “You know the value of saying to a parent, ‘You should know where your kid is and that you’re responsible for their negative actions.’”

During this month’s debate on the emergency bill, councilmembers said that part of the goal should be to set a widely accepted expectation that kids will be home by a certain hour.

“We know the streetlight rule,” said At-Large Councilmember Robert White, recalling what he said was an accepted rule when he was growing up in D.C. “I think the streetlights is the right time.”

Are there alternatives to curfews?

Critics say that instead of taking kids in, cities like D.C. should offer alternative activities to keep them occupied. Bowser has said she agrees, and the Department of Parks and Recreation is again putting on the Late Night Hype events that run from 7 to 11 p.m. on designated weekend nights. “We want our young people to be able to socialize safely and appropriately,” she said.