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Are juvenile records public? Not all states seal them, but there's a movement to make changes

The earliest juvenile courts were all confidential and the proceedings were closed to the public. Over time, that changed but a movement is underway in some states to protect kids' privacy.

Amanda Pérez Pintado   | Paste BN

As tales of teenage 'superpredator' criminals took root in the 1980s and 1990s, states started enacting laws that imposed harsher penalties on children. 

And as those laws were codified, the world wide web came online, giving anyone with a home computer increasingly easy access to court records.

Those two factors helped create a patchwork system in the United States that puts the confidentiality of juvenile records – one of the fundamental aspects of juvenile justice – at risk, and that system has largely remained in place even as statistics show juvenile crime rates dropping dramatically in the past 20 years. 

Such that, if a child is accused of a crime in a state where juvenile court records are generally confidential there is no central, online database where the public can access those records. But if that same child is accused of a crime in a less-stringent state, that information is available to anyone with an internet connection.

Juveniles in Washington have the right to seal their records, but once the information is online, "you can't unring that bell" because of the potential permanence of the internet, said Kim Ambrose, law professor at the University of Washington.

"By putting these records on the public website, it was very difficult for juveniles to be able to seal their records and not have them come up and impact their ability to get jobs," Ambrose said.

Washington is among states that rank low in policies to ensure children's confidentiality in court, according to the Juvenile Law Center's national scorecard. Idaho, where  juvenile court proceedings and records are only closed to the public if the minor is under 14 and not charged with an offense that could be considered a felony if committed by an adult, also scores low on confidentiality, according to the organization. 

Washington's Supreme Court recently adopted rule changes to protect children's confidentiality, but the court paused putting them into effect while justices weigh concerns.

The new rule would scrub juvenile court files from online systems and require young people be identified by initials and birthdate rather than their full name. 

"It's common in a lot of places to see initials in captions of cases," said Paul Holland, a law professor at Seattle University. "That is something that is intended to be just an additional layer of protection... as we come to recognize even more clearly not just how significant the impacts can be of juvenile court involvement but also, in particular, the disparities."

But even efforts in states with liberal reputations, such as Washington, have been met with some resistance from court officials and free-speech advocates.

The court rule changes have received pushback, including from the Washington Association of County Clerks, which said it's a "bad idea" limiting access to juvenile records and making them available only in courthouses. 

“Court records are not just about an offender’s alleged actions— they are also an official court record of decisions of government officials including law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, county clerks, etc. and should not be impossible to access,” Kimberly A. Allen, president of the clerk’s association, wrote in a letter opposing the changes.

The Seattle Times editorial board said the juvenile record changes would "stir chaos in the legal system, prevent residents from holding their elected judges accountable and even, potentially, smear some of the young people the new rule purports to protect."

Holland said, though there might be a public interest in knowing a specific young person has been involved in a crime, it's "outweighed by our public interest in providing all of our youth, particularly those youth who come from communities that are disproportionately affected by the operation of the criminal legal system, the chance to minimize the negative effects of justice system involvement."

Other states have recently made efforts to reform juvenile laws:

  • Indiana in March passed a juvenile justice reform law that generally prohibits detaining children under 12 years old and implements risk-assessment tools to divert kids from the system. 
  • In Pennsylvania, a bill seeks to reform the process to expunge juvenile records.
  • Maryland's legislature passed a set of bills earlier this year that would establish new sentencing rules for youth and add requirements before police interrogate a child.
  • In 2020, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled a plan to overhaul the state's juvenile justice system and last year signed a law that reduces mandatory sentences for youth. 
  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this month vetoed a bill that would have expunged juvenile criminal records. 

Confidentiality in juvenile court

Since the establishment of juvenile courts, states have recognized that children are fundamentally different from adults.  

“The juvenile court model, from its inception in the late 19th century, was intended to protect young people from the long term consequences of having been involved in potentially criminal conduct and being involved with the court,” Holland said. 

The earliest juvenile courts were all confidential and proceedings were closed to the public, Ambrose said.  

“It was this idea of protecting children, that we didn't want to start labeling and stigmatizing children for things that they did as children,” Ambrose said. “Children are different. The mistakes that they make are different.” 

During the 1980s and 1990s, however, an increase in juvenile crime rates led to tougher laws that deprived children of certain protections, said Andrew Keats, staff attorney at the Juvenile Law Center.   

"The interest in protecting them has diminished over time, and I think it's only recently starting to get more attention as it should," Keats said.

Over the past 20 years, the share of crimes committed by youth in the U.S. have declined by more than half, according to an analysis by advocacy organization the Sentencing Project. 

The Juvenile Law Center recommends juvenile legal systems ensure law enforcement and court records are not widely available and are never posted online, Keats said. 

"When the case is closed, they should be expunged, meaning records should be actually destroyed usually when the cases are closed or the youth ages out of the juvenile system." Keats said. "And that should be automatic." 

The Juvenile Law Center also says sealed records should be completely closed to the public.

The greater the protections afforded to young people at the start of the process, Keats said, "is a good thing for the for the juvenile system."

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