Posts tagged "youth arrests"

Young people often make mistakes. Many times, they may not truly understand the consequences of being convicted of even a relatively minor crime in North Carolina. Whether it involves traffic tickets, underage drinking or shoplifting, having a criminal record can affect a person's life for years. As one woman recently found out, a mistake she made in her teens came back to haunt her 40 years later.

The woman, who is now 58 years old, had been working in the mortgage unit at a Wells Fargo Bank. When the company started performing background checks on all currently-employed workers in that division, they uncovered that the woman had a criminal record. She had been convicted of shoplifting 40 years ago as a teenager.

Students who face charges for juvenile crimes have a lot at stake. Depending on the charges, a student can be suspended from school, scholarships can be lost and he or she may face jail time as well. Repercussions of a student arrest can vary, depending on the student's age and the charges, but in all situations it is important to protect a student's future.

As evident in many schools in North Carolina, the Greek system is a popular entity. Recently, 27 members of a college fraternity were facing charges. In this case, students at Dartmouth College who were in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity faced serious punishments for violating school policy and unlawful behavior.

Criminologist Megan Kurlychek of the University of Albany says it best: "The average teenager who steals an iPod or is arrested for possession of marijuana - why do we make that define their lives?" Kurlychek is referring, in part, to a recent study which indicates that more than 30 percent of all youth will be arrested by age 23.

The arrests stem from a variety of criminal accusations, from truancy and underage drinking to assault and homicide, as Donna Leinwand Leger reports for USA Today.

Now that spring has arrived, high school students all across North Carolina will be getting ready to celebrate several important events. The next few months will be filled with proms, graduations and the parties that follow them.

These are important milestones in a teen's life, but they can also come with dangers. Prom and graduation parties often present teens with opportunities to drink or try illegal drugs, and many students don't realize the consequences of getting caught. A criminal charge like underage drinking could easily disrupt post-graduation plans.

Anyone arrested for underage drinking or drug possession faces serious legal penalties, but students also face consequences on campus. Colleges and Universities in North Carolina each have their own policies regarding drinking and drug use, but most of them include on-campus sanctions in addition to the criminal consequences.

At the University of North Carolina Asheville, the school's policy on drug possession and underage drinking includes a wide range of punishments. Students risk being removed from the dorms and even expelled from school if they are caught with an illegal substance, but they may get off with only community service time for a first offense.