We protect minors because they are children, and they are allowed to make mistakes.
At a certain point, we say someone is an adult and fully responsible for their actions, because “that’s who they are”.
It’s not entirely nuanced—and in the US, at least, we charge children as adults all the time—but it’s understandable.
But you create an incentive for organized crime to recruit youth to commit crimes and not have to suffer the consequences.
At a certain point, poorly thought out "protections", turn into a system that protects organized crime, because criminals aren't as stupid as lawmakers, and exploit the system.
There is a big difference between making a mistake as a kid that lands you in trouble, and working as a underling for organized crime to commit robberies, drug deals, and violent crime, and not having to face responsibility for their actions.
The legal system has so many loopholes for youth, for certain groups, that the law is no longer fair, and that is its own problem, contributing to the decline of public trust.
> working as a underling for organized crime to commit robberies, drug deals, and violent crime
Have you ever considered that these children are victims of organized crime? That they aren't capable of understanding the consequences of what they're doing and that they're being manipulated by adult criminals?
The problem here isn't the lack of long term consequences for kids.
I used to be a drug dealer so I know what is going on and they aren’t victims, they are willing recruits.
12 year olds know it’s not right to sell crack.
The problem is the gap between lack of legal opportunities for youth and the allure of easy money, status and power from being a criminal. Doesn’t help that the media makes it look so fun and cool to be a gangster.
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What's the alternative? A 14 year old steals a pack of gum, and he's listed as a shoplifter for the rest of his life?
Just because exceptions are exploitable, doesn't mean we should just scrap all the exceptions. Why not improve the wording and try to work around the exceptions?
If you don't think this crime is a big deal, then why do you think this crime would matter if it was in the public record tied to their name? These two ideas you have are not compatible.
I don't think stealing a pack of gum at 14 years old is a big deal, but many people have a huge problem understanding proportionality: To them, it's binary. You're either a criminal or not a criminal, and if this kid's record shows "shoplifter" until he dies, a significant number of people, including employers, will lump him into the "criminal" bucket for the rest of his life.
And what about the kids who get recruited for gang activity and do some pretty messed up stuff as kids? Should that not appear on a public record? This is where the problem lies, you essentially can only ever make it an all or nothing approach as it gets a lot harder to determine what should or shouldn't be apart of a public record. Especially since as you reflected in your comment, this becomes and opinion thing on whether someone thinks it matters or not what crime they did as a kid.
The problem that is happening in most Western countries is that criminal organizations take advantage of the fact that minors get reduced sentenced and that their criminal records are usually kept sealed (unless tried as an adult). Whether it be having them steal cars, partake in organized shoplifting operations, muggings, gang activity, drug dealing, etc...
Your reasoning for why this information shouldn't be public record seems to boil down to the fact that you don't agree with other peoples judgement of someone's past crimes. You'd like to see more forgiveness, and you don't think others will show the same forgiveness, so you want to take away all the access to information because of that. To me that seems like a view from a point of moral superiority.
I'd rather people get access to this information and be able to use their own brains to determine whether they want that person working there. If you were involved in shoplifting at 17 years old, and turn 18, I think it would be very fair for a store owner to be able to use that information to judge you when making a hiring decision. To me it doesn't make sense that you turn a magical age of 18 and suddenly your past poor decisions vanish into a void.
I think we can at least agree that children recruited by organized crime to steal cars, break into homes, assault people, and so on, should be treated differently than a kid who stole a pack of gum from a store. Whatever the solution is, it has to take into account the seriousness of the crime, and it has to discourage this binary criminal / not criminal thinking.