Curfew

The term curfew refers to the political, military or police ban on an unspecified number of people entering public areas such as streets or squares (ban on entering) or leaving the house, apartment or barracks and going out at certain times (ban on going out). It constitutes a restriction on the freedom of the person. For differently defined key persons (with system-relevant or system-critical professions) there are regular exceptions to the ban.

According to Volker Boehme-Neßler, curfews are a tried and tested political tool in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. They serve to control the behaviour of the population. In order to really enforce them, massive state violence is needed in the final analysis. To use state power against the population in this dimension is not possible in a democracy. Therefore, curfews are rather frowned upon in democracies and are considered an unsuitable means to consistently control the behaviour of the population.

In order to distinguish between curfews with a ban on going out without exception and the situation in which there are (wide-ranging) possibilities to leave the house, the Austrian Federal Government and the Bavarian State Government spoke of curfews in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic (see below). This linguistic differentiation was subsequently adopted by other federal states and by some media. The Bavarian Administrative Court made a similar differentiation in a decision.

In addition to curfews, lockdowns can be imposed or established to enforce or control a curfew. Persons, goods and - depending on the damage situation - information should not be able to enter or leave the cordoned-off area, or only against proof of necessity. Depending on the situation, a lockdown can be imposed for a region or for individual localities. The duration of the lockdown can also vary from a short-term event (e.g. rampage) to a situation lasting several weeks or months (e.g. war, state of emergency or disaster). A lockdown is usually effective in both directions, as an exit barrier and as an entry barrier.

A relatively mild variant of restricting freedom of movement is to prohibit residents of a territory from moving further than a certain number of kilometres from their domicile, their place of residence or the territorial entity in which they reside (e.g. in Germany, a Landkreis). The individual radius of movement of a resident results from this regulation.

Etymology

The English equivalent curfew is originally derived from the French couvre-feu (French: couvrir = to cover; feu = fire, hearth fire), which was used there to describe the covering of the hearth in the evening. In order to avoid fires, the fire had to be extinguished in the evening after a corresponding bell signal. Later, the term couvre-feu became a synonym for alarm, curfew, curfew or darkening. In both linguistic areas, therefore, this circumstance is much broader in its meaning than the German curfew. For example, evening ringing, the obligation for au pairs to be home by 10 p.m. (Nach-Hause-komm-Zeit), or the nightly ban on taking off and landing at airports in order to observe the night's rest are also referred to as curfew. Similarly, in American League baseball, certain plays are sometimes banned from 1 a.m. local time under the curfew rule.

Collective restrictions

Typically, the curfew affects an indeterminate number of people.

State of Emergency

The main case of application of a curfew is an emergency situation such as war, occupation, riots, terrorism, an operational incident, an epidemic or a natural disaster; where appropriate, this emergency situation is formally declared ("state of emergency"). The curfew serves to protect against danger from those affected by it (examples: riots, medical isolation) or to protect those affected from danger (examples: incident, reverse isolation), although both aspects may also coincide. Often the aim is to prevent looting.

A curfew can be limited in time, space or personnel. If it is also limited by wide-ranging exceptions (e.g. for travel to work, shopping, emergency assistance, funerals, medical appointments, pet care), it is more commonly referred to as curfew restrictions. Authorized persons may be issued passes.

In Germany, for example, there were night curfews in the immediate postwar period of 1945/46 and curfew restrictions in some states during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (see below).

A specific legal basis for intervention exists in Germany in the case of civil protection (residence regulation, § 10 ZSKG). Another example of a framework regulation: Curfew Act 1987 in Papua New Guinea.

Possible negative consequences

The economic consequences of a curfew must be clearly distinguished from those of a shutdown; they depend on their duration and scope. Recessions or even depressions are feared.

Juvenile delinquency

In order to prevent juvenile delinquency, night-time curfews for juveniles have been imposed in the USA and other countries since the middle of the 19th century. The regulatory competence lies mostly with the municipalities; sometimes there are also federal laws.

General social control

In more traditional societies, curfews can serve as a means of social control, irrespective of any specific threat. In the Pacific state of Tokelau, for example, there is generally an evening curfew at prayer time and a night-time curfew, for children from 9 p.m. and for adults from 11 p.m.