Limiting Access to Juvenile Records
Neal Margolies
Concordia University, St. Paul
CJU545-Legal and Legislative Issues
Miles Camp, Esq.
October 11, 2012
Limiting Access to Juvenile Records
Although Minnesota law classifies adult offender arrest data as public information (including name, address, gender, and age), access to similar juvenile offender data is more restricted. Minn. Stat. §§ 13.82, subd. 2; 260B.171 subd. 5 restrict the public release of data on arrested juveniles to solely age and gender, and are available to other government agencies on a “need to know” basis. This privacy policy is “based on the primarily rehabilitative mission of the juvenile justice system and expectation that the system will best achieve its objective if the juvenile and his or her mistakes are protected from public scrutiny” ("Access To Government Data," 2004, p. 2). Therefore, many youths as well as adults believe that there are few, if any, long-term repercussions for minors with a delinquent record.
However in 1986, Minnesota law was changed to open court proceedings to the public for 16- and 17-year-olds charged with any felony level offense (Minn. Stat. § 260B.163 subd.1), causing profound consequences for many unsuspecting juvenile offenders. These records remain public even if the charges were later dismissed or reduced ("Limited Access To Juvenile Records," 2012, p. 1). According to the Council on Crime and Justice, this was part of a national trend toward allowing more access to juvenile proceedings. It also entered Minnesota into a minority of states that make juvenile records open to the public if any felony level offense is charged (Council on Crime and Justice website, 2012).
In my position as a Juvenile Probation Officer, I have seen firsthand how this has negatively affected youth who have been charged with felony level offenses at the ages of 16 and 17. Many are continually denied employment or housing well into adulthood based upon their record, sometimes unaware that their juvenile record was the reason for denial. It is my belief that the current law is contrary to the rehabilitative purposes of the juvenile justice system, and unnecessarily limits the future opportunities of thousands of youth in Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Second Chance Coalition, since this law went into effect in 1986, “more crimes have been made felonies, criminal records have been publicly available on centralized electronic sources, the number of commercial background data companies has skyrocketed, and the percentage of employers conducting background checks for any position has increased over 60%.” In 2010 alone, there were 2,646 felony level petitions filed for 16- and 17-year-olds ("Limited Access To Juvenile Records," 2012, p. 1).
One of the major issues with the current laws is that youth found innocent of felony level charges or who have had their charges pled down to a lesser level offense are subject to the same scrutiny as youth that have been adjudicated of a felony level offense. As explained by Mark Haase, Vice President of the Council on Crime and Justice:
Under current law, the future of our children has been put essentially into the hands of one government official, the prosecutor. Simply by which 16-17 year olds they decide to charge with what…prosecutors now determine with this one decision whether or not our children will be able to access employment and housing…with or without being held back by the government record of the decision. (Council on Crime and Justice website, 2012)
In 2012, Minnesota legislation (House File 876/Senate File 602) was drafted which would allow judges to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a felony charge of a 16- or 17- year-old is serious or violent enough to warrant a public record, except for the most serious cases which would automatically be kept open (such as extended jurisdiction juvenile and adult certification hearings). “Despite strong lobbying
