This is an article I found in the 'Telegraph Magazine' July 2008. It describes the curfew that was placed on the teenagers of the town of Redruth at the beginning of the summer holidays. Apparently Redruth had one of the largest teen crime rates of the UK, and 'Operation Goodnight' was set up in order to combat this. Children of 10 and under were to be home at 8pm and children of 16 and under were to be home by 9pm. If the curfew was a success - which according to the article it was, then the initiative was to be rolled out in other places such as Manchester and the larger inner cities.
Redruth town is located within the old mining district of cornwall, and falls within an area which has been subject to much regeneration. It is about 3/4 miles from Cambourne another area earmarked for regeneration that is part of the "Heartlands" Scheme a project that was awarded big lottery funding of £22m.
" Voluntary" is the difficult word. There was no residents assembly, no vote on the matter. Instead there was a unanimous agreement by the dozen or so people who attended one meeting that the curfew would be a good idea. The scheme was conceived and being monitored by "the partners". Griffin (police officer) is untroubled by these niceties. "I thought lets just try it," he says. "It's not been imposed. We wanted a chance for the community to be part of something this summer: a low-key locally delivered initiative."
Bearing in mind the statistics would have taken into account things like population and also location, it cannot be fair to suggest that Redruth has the highest crime rate in the UK, only highest in crime rate when taking into account certain geographical considerations, that said the crime rate was sufficient that the town was used as a 'controlled test' to work out whether or not the curfew would work.
There are similar articles on the Telegraph website which talk about the curfew.
