Newark's summer youth curfew goes into effect Monday night, and will run from 11 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. daily until the beginning of the new school year.

CBS News New York rode along Monday with an outreach team that engages with children, teens and young adults during the overnight hours.

"We are not looking to arrest young people"

This year's curfew, which is part of the city's bigger summer youth initiative, started in May, but just on weekends. City officials say kids under 18 now have to be home during the curfew or with a parent or guardian if they are outside.

"When we are going out, we are not looking to arrest young people. We are not looking to criminalize young people at all. We are looking to talk to them and really just engage," Newark Assistant Deputy Mayor Barry Ford said. "This is essentially one of the routes the team would drive, trying to see if young people are around. They're driving by school areas. They're driving by playgrounds."

"Some of them don't have bus fare. We'll be their transportation to get them home that night," outreach specialist Lynn Smith said.

Ford said his team is not issuing summonses.

"It would take a very significant issue for us to do something like that," Ford said.

Summer outreach has worked in Newark  

According to the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, outreach teams were out for 94 days total last summer and engaged with more than 1,000 people ages 12-25, including 483 juveniles.

Outreach teams say they had 90 youth engagements over the Fourth of July Weekend, alone.

"Their house may be hot. They may not have air conditioning. Parents may not be home. There may be a variety of different things going on why they are outside at that time gives us a chance to engage them and see from a social services perspective if we could help them," Ford said.

The curfew has been in place for decades. Critics say it criminalizes children, but supporters say it's helping to drive down crime and youth violence. Last year, Newark reported a 7% drop in juvenile arrests during the summer curfew.

"I grew up in the neighborhood. Everyone went through things in life and I just want to give back and give positivity to the neighborhood," outreach specialist William Gonzalez said. "We don't want to see these kids out here pulled into these streets and being consumed into it."

• Newark