Employed teenagers are better off financially and less likely to commit crimes.
Employed teenagers are better off financially and less likely to commit crimes.
A mandatory curfew. That’s the newest way in which Washington, D.C., is attempting to solve a troubling rise in crime, especially crime committed by teenagers. Since September 1, teenagers under 17 years old have been banned from leaving their homes between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. in seven neighborhoods. Yet instead of essentially locking teens in their homes at night, the city should try a real solution: empowering teens to get jobs during the day.
D.C.’s leaders should look to New York City and Chicago for inspiration. Since 1963, the former has operated a “youth-employment program” that connects young people between ages 14 and 24 with jobs. Some 100,000 New Yorkers take part, with exceptional results. They’re up to 45 percent less likely to be arrested for violent crime and up to 35 percent less likely to be arraigned for violent or property crime compared with New York City teenagers not in the program. Mayor Eric Adams has called to expand the program to reach 250,000 young people.
Chicago’s experience is similar. Its program, which is also focused on 14- to 24-year-olds, led to 43 percent fewer violent-crime arrests for participants compared with a control group. In Boston, property-crime arraignments fell by nearly 30 percent, most of it during the program’s duration. And it’s likely that preventing crime in the short run has long-term benefits for public safety. When young people and students don’t break the law, they start to learn habits that make them better citizens.
The Big Apple and the Windy City deserve praise for these efforts, though it must be acknowledged that they still suffer from high youth crime. That’s because these programs are relatively small given the size of those cities. They only reach a certain number of teenagers and overlook the vast majority of their peers. They also only run during the summer and ignore teenagers for more than 44 weeks a year.
These limitations bear directly on Washington, D.C. The city’s leaders could try a small-scale program of their own, or they could go for a bigger and even better solution: Break the barriers that block teenagers from working year-round.
Like most states, D.C. has made it extremely difficult for teens to find jobs. A high-school student who wants to work must jump through a lengthy series of government-mandated hoops to get a work permit. He has to find an employer willing to hire him. He must also fill out time-consuming paperwork with associated documentation, turn it in to the correct office in person, and then wait for the application to be approved or denied. What teenager will subject himself to this burdensome process? Being a father of four kids myself, I know that most teenagers aren’t going to go through that.
Teenagers and families should decide their own futures — not administrators or bureaucrats. If D.C. repealed its work-permit regime, teenagers would find jobs much more quickly, which, in turn, would make the city safer. And crucially, teenagers would still have the health and safety protections they deserve.
Some claim that the district’s ditching work permits would constitute a return of child labor, yet federal child-labor laws would still be fully in place. Teenagers would be able to continue their education and work, in safe environments, while gaining lifelong skills and staying off the streets. Besides, New York City and Chicago are already helping teenagers as young as 14 find work. These cities aren’t pushing children into sweatshops. They’re simply putting teenagers on a better path.
Eliminating work permits wouldn’t just make the city safer. Teens who work for even a single year make 14 to 16 percent more in their 20s, and their income prospects grow further if they work longer when they’re young. Other benefits of teenage work include decreased drug use and increased graduation rates. D.C. should want these things, for the sake of teenagers and everyone else.
If D.C. ditched youth-work permits, it would have plenty of company. My home state of Arkansas made the same move in March, joining 15 other states that range from deep-blue Oregon to bright-red Florida. That includes the two states with the highest teenage-labor-force-participation rates — Utah and Kansas, according to the most recent data — which shows how ditching teenage-work permits leads to more working teenagers. These states have chosen a path of upward mobility for the next generation, with the added bonus of public safety in the here and now.
Washington, D.C., deserves to reach that future. It won’t get there with curfews such as the one that started on September 1. But it will stand a chance if it follows the lead of other cities and states and finally empowers teenagers to work.