Why is confidentiality for juvenile records so important?
“Criminal records can make it difficult for young offenders to find a job, get into college, or borrow money. An expungement bill would create a process by which certain nonviolent juvenile offenses could be removed from a criminal record. It’s a way to reduce the likelihood that a teen who makes bad choices will become a career criminal.”
Boston Globe Editorial Board
Young people face barriers to success because juvenile records – which are supposed to be confidential – can follow them for a lifetime.
These records can mean life-long barriers to employment, education, and housing. They can prevent young people from growing up to become foster parents or having a career in the military. In 2018, Massachusetts began barring long-time staff and prospective employees of any agency licensed by the Department of Early Education and Care based on any juvenile record.
Juvenile records are not a good measure of public safety risk.
The mere presence of a juvenile court record is neither an indication of guilt nor an indication of public safety risk. Massachusetts’ juvenile court data show that 10%-13% of the cases resulted in an adjudication of delinquency.
A young person who has not been re-arrested four years after their last juvenile arrest is no more likely to re-offend than someone in the general population. There is a point where these records have no predictive value of future risk. Young people can change. Most young people age out of offending behavior as they get older.
Limiting expungement opportunities is bad for public safety.
States where there are minimal administrative barriers to sealing and/or expunging juvenile records have significantly reduced re-arrest/recidivism rates and increased college graduation rates and incomes as these young people transition to adulthood.
Summer jobs for teens have been tied to a 43% reduction in juvenile arrest, yet juvenile court records, including non-conviction information, are accessible to certain teen employers and a three year wait for sealing non-convictions could prevent a young person from getting a summer job.
Sealing is not enough.
Police, prosecutors and the courts for “law enforcement purposes” can access all juvenile records, including sealed records.
Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) can see juvenile records, even if sealed, of staff and job applicants to child care and other child-serving agencies, including sealed records. In 2018, Massachusetts expanded the power of EEC to ban both prospective and current employees of child care and (non-child care) agencies that provide foster, adoption and residential care services based on decades old juvenile records.
The Department of Children and Families (DCF) can see juvenile records, even if sealed. In 2016, DCF issued regulations further expanding background check criteria for foster and adoptive parents, including restricting anyone from being a foster parent, if they or anyone 15 years or older in the household has a record, including sealed juvenile records, regardless of how long ago, how relevant or the disposition. As people of color are disproportionately subject to the justice system, minority children in the foster care system are disproportionately barred from being placed with family.