Closures in JavaScript have been a crucial feature for developers since their introduction. According to an article by Nishanthan K, closures allow functions to access variables and functions declared at the same scope level, mimicking private methods in Java. This encapsulation of functionality can improve code organization and reusability.

Source: https://dev.to/nishanthan-k/mastering-closures-in-javascript-understanding-scope-encapsulation-and-performance-4ai9