Kids make bad choices for many reasons: lack of life experiences, partially formed frontal lobes, raging hormones, peer pressure, you name it.
We've all been there, so we cut them slack. We don't say "I told you so" when their hearts are broken by "The One." We give them money for college, even though they wasted their allowance. If they have any brushes with the law, we seal their records when they turn 18.
Except in Minnesota, that last part isn't true. At a time when swiping beer from the neighbor's garage constitutes felony burglary, when trying to impress older kids by giving them pills from the home medicine cabinet is felony distribution of a controlled substance and when school fights may be prosecuted as felony assaults, Minnesota makes criminal records public from the time kids turn 16.
Most kids don't know until they apply for a job. Thinking their juvenile records are in the past, they check "no" to having been convicted of a crime and are fired when the background check turns up a conviction.
Worse, a nationwide study by the Center for Community Alternatives found that 66 percent of universities now ask about convictions. Some schools even have a "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to felonies. This puts many youths at an even greater disadvantage in the already competitive admissions process.
We all know the value of education. Generally, the higher your educational level, the more income you can expect to earn. The converse is also true. So, although it is not part of the official penalty, a conviction as a teenager often contributes to a life of poverty as one struggles to find decent work and is denied access to school.
No one knows how many kids are deterred from attending college because of their criminal records. However, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that denying financial aid to people convicted of drug crimes delays enrollment in college by an average of two years, leads some to never enroll and disproportionately affects already disadvantaged young people.
Certainly people make good livings without college, but most of those people were raised in middle- and upper-class families, surrounded by good influences. Most teens with criminal records were raised in poverty, surrounded by bad influences. For many, the only hope of climbing out of poverty is going to college, escaping old environments, learning new ways to think and meeting people who will help them succeed.
