Do juvenile curfew laws reduce underage drinking

Objective:Although not originally enacted to deter the problem of underage drinking in the United States, one set of laws that may influence this behavior is juvenile curfew laws. This research asked the following: (a) What is the effect of enacting a juvenile curfew law on youth drinking, and (b) do demographic variables moderate the relation between juvenile curfew law enactment and drinking? This study examined the effect of juvenile curfew laws on underage drinking, using data from 46 U.S. cities from 1991 to 2005.Method:In 2014, we compiled a data set containing alcohol and curfew law data by zip code. It included 63,081 minors (ages 12–17 years) from 1,081 zip codes. We used difference-in-difference regressions to analyze the data.Results:The effect of the enactment of a curfew law on the likelihood of consuming alcohol in the past year or past 30 days or of heavy episodic drinking in the past 2 weeks was not significant when compared with cities without curfew laws during the same periods. Although...