My interpretation of the expungement or sealing of records process is that a person may petition the court to have their juvenile records expunged if they meet the criteria to do so. The basic premise is that the “offense” never happened and would provide a second chance to the young person. The exception to this in Tennessee falls into the following: records may be expunged when a person reaches the age of 18, unless at the age of 16 or older they committed any Class A felony and/or Class B felonies of aggravated kidnapping, robbery, rape, sexual battery. When an offender reaches 21, records are destroyed except for the offenses mentioned above (Tennessee Code Annotated 37-1-153, 2016).
The concept of expungement allows a young person a chance
