Juvenile Crime and Victimization - Opening Juvenile Records

Traditionally, juvenile hearings were closed to the public and the records were sealed based on the belief that delinquent behavior by a child should not be held against him or her for the rest of his or her life, but many states are now allowing more openness. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, in 2002 twenty-one states required that under certain conditions delinquency hearings be open to the public, and fifteen states had laws that closed all delinquency hearings to the public. Forty-three states required that police departments notify school officials when a student was charged with a crime.