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In Raleigh, North Carolina, local officials are weighing an emergency youth curfew. In St. Augustine Beach, Florida, police say real-time social media monitoring helped them stop a planned youth gathering before it began. And in Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has threatened to criminally charge parents whose children repeatedly participate in disorderly crowds.
Communities across the country are trying to figure out how to respond to what have been dubbed “teen takeovers.” A somewhat imprecise term, it has generally been used (often by organizers themselves) to describe large groups of teenagers and young adults who follow social media cues to gather quickly in public spaces like commercial districts, malls, parks or beaches.
Crowds at reported events have ranged from a few dozen to several thousand people. While they are generally promoted as social gatherings, some have devolved into disorder, fights, robberies, property damage and, less frequently, shootings. Private security guards, local businesses, and police have all described feeling overwhelmed by some of these gatherings.
Explanations for their apparent popularity vary. Some researchers have pointed out that the young people participating are the same ones who had their most formative social years interrupted by the pandemic. “They just want to be out in public, outside, socializing — not online," a senior researcher at the Urban Institute told The Washington Post. Others point to the dwindling supply and rising costs of so-called “third spaces,” areas other than home and school, where young people used to congregate, like bowling alleys and skating rinks.
There are also competing theories about why these events have sometimes led to destruction and disorder. Some argue that social media incentivizes a kind of “performance crime,” pushing the boundaries of the risky behaviors teenagers are willing to engage in. Others point to the psychological phenomenon of deindividuation, where people in group settings feel a sense of anonymity and “morph into this big giant identity where I can do anything and nobody can identify me,” adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Khalid Afzal told the Chicago Tribune.
Race and class also loom heavily over the media and civic response to “teen takeovers,” which have predominantly involved Black and Latino youth. “Because it’s Black youth gathering, because it’s Brown youth gathering, we see it as being a threat,” sociologist Almethia Franklin told The Washington Post.
Georgetown law professor Kristin Henning told NPR that these takeovers often feature young people from underresourced parts of town “taking over, if you will, or visiting” nearby public areas that have been gentrified or commercialized, where they may feel unwelcome. “That contrast can give takeovers the appearance of a spontaneous revolt, one that illuminates the extreme economic disparities of our era,” wrote Robert F. Worth for The Atlantic.
More conservative critics argue that the gatherings reflect failures of parental supervision and personal responsibility, compounded by juvenile justice reforms they say have weakened consequences.
Across these competing explanations, one point of broad agreement is that social media has transformed the scale and speed of these youth gatherings. Anonymous organizers can reach hundreds of thousands of people with a single post, and withhold the planned location to stay ahead of authorities, dropping a GPS “pin” at the last moment.
Many cities are turning to familiar tools to attempt to rein in the gatherings. In Newport Beach, California, police made over 400 arrests of 15-to-25-year-olds over the July 4th weekend after reports of young people blocking roadways and directing fireworks and projectiles at crowds. Authorities cited “teen takeovers” as factors in mass arrest incidents at Memorial Day gatherings in Tampa, Florida; Hampton Beach, New Hampshire; and Chicago, Illinois this spring. Some of the arrests in all three incidents involved deadly weapons and violent crimes, but most were for more minor offenses.
In Naperville, Illinois, Police Chief Jason Arres was blunt about his approach last month: “If you break the law, there will be no warnings; there will be no second chances.”
Juvenile curfews have also been a popular approach, with Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina considering such efforts this week. In Washington, D.C., a curfew took effect earlier this month. It bans youth under 18 from being out between midnight and 6 a.m., and allows the police chief to establish “target zones” where the curfew could begin as early as 8 p.m., for groups of nine or more young people.
Research has generally shown that youth curfews are ineffective in curbing violent crime, and can lead to unnecessary interactions between police and young people who are not otherwise committing any crimes.
Another approach that has gained some traction is threatening charges against parents over their child’s involvement in disorderly behavior, which has been floated in Washington, D.C., as well as Raleigh and Chicago, where a proposed ordinance was ultimately rejected in June.
An analysis by R Street, a think tank that promotes free-market and conservative policies, noted that these kinds of prosecution schemes are rarely used in practice, and that “child welfare advocates contend that destabilizing families who are already struggling ultimately aggravates delinquency rather than preventing it.”
Other agencies are trying technology-based approaches. On Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, police are using drones with thermal imaging to monitor beach crowds and intervene before they grow. In St. Augustine Beach, Florida, authorities monitoring social media with the county’s Real Time Intelligence Center said they spotted the flier for a planned “takeover” and circulated on their own channels that the event was “cancelled,” before tracking down the person who posted it and issuing a cease and desist order. The department also deployed extra officers to the advertised location ahead of the scheduled time.
Bronx, New York District Attorney Darcel Clark sent a letter to major social media platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube this spring, requesting that they "take proactive measures to prevent the spread of content that encourages riots and other unsafe mass gatherings." Clark later said a meeting with some top platform executives was “insightful and productive,” but it’s unclear whether any platforms have made concrete efforts to limit gatherings.
Many jurisdictions are also trying to prevent the gatherings with alternative programming alongside, or instead of, law enforcement responses. Tampa has paired enforcement with midnight basketball and other summer programs. City leaders in Detroit, Michigan, funded a teen “kickback,” with food trucks and entertainment, but reported poor attendance. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed for free passes for teens to YMCA facilities across the city, and organizers of a “peace takeover” featuring Chance the Rapper drew impressive crowds last month.
“Kids are just trying to find community within themselves, trying to coexist with each other,” Da’Mon Dantzler, 20, told Block Club Chicago of the event. “It’s peaceful and organized instead of being reckless.”
