title: A Systematic Review of the Impact of Juvenile Curfew Laws on Public Health and Justice Outcomes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Automobile crashes cause more than 800,000 youth injuries and deaths each year. Other youth suffer the consequences from being either a perpetrator or victim of a crime. One type of law that has an effect on youth behavior is juvenile curfew laws. These laws restrict the times that youth may occupy public places or streets. We systematically reviewed studies evaluating the effectiveness of these laws to address the question: Can juvenile curfew laws be used to improve youth public health and juvenile justice outcomes?
  
  
  METHODS
  In 2013, we used a standardized set of keywords to search 24 databases for studies that evaluated effectiveness outcome measures of juvenile curfew laws. After applying the exclusion criteria and removing duplicate studies, 14 studies of juvenile curfews remained.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the six studies examining the effectiveness of juvenile curfew laws on adverse youth health outcomes, five found a positive impact. Of the eight studies examining the effectiveness of curfew laws on juvenile crime and victimization, four found a positive impact.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The studies that found that juvenile curfew laws were effective at reducing adverse youth health outcomes (e.g., trauma transports); juvenile crime; and victimization were of higher quality (e.g., stronger methodologic approaches) than those finding no effects. However, given the limited number of studies and concerns with quality, we conclude that more research is needed before conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of juvenile curfew laws.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland;. Electronic address: egros001@umaryland.edu.
authors.forename: Elyse R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Grossman
authors.affiliation: School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Maryland.
authors.forename: Nancy A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000293:Adolescent; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D035846:Law Enforcement; D011634:Public Health; D013997:Time Factors