Juvenile injustice: Branded unemployable forever, as a child

9-13-2012 Michigan:

Twenty years ago, amid near-hysteria about juvenile crime, Michigan's Legislature enacted a series of reforms that made it easier to brand a child delinquent and much harder to remove that label. Today, we are paying the price for that misguided policy.

Almost weekly, we hear from a distraught young adult or their mother a tale that goes something like this: The young person was labeled delinquent years ago for some minor crime, and although he or she has had no problems with the law since, cannot get a job because their juvenile records have been listed on the state's Internet Criminal History Access Tool (ICHAT).

A case-in-point: We heard from the mother of a 20-year-old. Like most adolescents, her son went through a difficult time when he was a teen — he argued with his mother, he disobeyed her and she called the police for help; he stole a gift card from the department store where he worked. He was charged with domestic violence and stealing the gift card.

Without a lawyer, he admitted in court that he committed larceny; the domestic violence charge was dropped. He completed probation and had no further encounters with the law. Now age 20, when he applies for a job, the potential employer conducts an ICHAT search, discovers that he was arrested for domestic violence and admitted to the larceny. They won't hire him.

This is the story for hundreds — and possibly thousands — of young Michiganians.

For a small fee, anyone can search ICHAT, a database maintained by the State Police, and obtain information about arrests and convictions.

It is not clear under the law that children's records should even be listed on ICHAT, which is intended to list adult "convictions."

Since 1907, we have not "convicted" juveniles of crimes. When we established the juvenile court at the turn of the 20th century, with the intent of rehabilitating young lawbreakers, we made a commitment to the state's children that their youthful indiscretions would not follow them into adulthood, provided they did not continue to run afoul of the law. But that is no longer the case.

This problem is made worse because juvenile court judges have only limited ability to expunge — to wipe clean — a juvenile's record. Under our law, it is now easier to expunge an adult's record than it is a child's.

These irresponsible policies — the ease of labeling children as delinquent, listing on public databases and judges' limited ability to clear a child's record — are creating a class of unemployable youth. Their inability to get a good paying job creates a hydraulic pressure for them to commit crime.

Our Legislature should change the law to do three things: First, expand the options for courts to handle juvenile cases informally so that fewer kids are labeled delinquent. This would be consistent with how Michigan law has long handled young adults. Youth between 18 and 21 are frequently allowed to serve a term of probation, and, if successful, emerge from the legal system with no criminal record.

Second, make clear that juveniles' records are not to be listed on the ICHAT database.

Finally, allow the state's judges broader authority to wipe clean a juvenile's record when doing so would serve the interests of the young person and the community.

While juveniles should be held accountable for crimes, someone who made a youthful mistake and then turned his life around should not be publicly branded — and unemployable — forever. ..Source.. by Frank Vandervort, clinical professor at the University of Michigan Law School, co-founded the Juvenile Justice Clinic in 2009. The Hon. Faye Harrison is probate judge in Saginaw County.