without identifiable information required in paragraph (c) is the most important section of the application. As in the other access provisions, disclosure should only be made to researchers when essential to achieving the purpose of the research, evaluative, or statistical study. If those purposes can be achieved by using information from which the identities have been stripped, the required information should be turned over in nonidentifiable form. See 28 C.F.R. §22.26(b). Among the methods which may be used by researchers in preserving the anonymity of the subject of identifiable records pursuant to paragraph (d) are: • Omitting any data from research findings and reports which is labeled by name or other personal identification or which by virture of sample size or others factors can be reasonably interpreted as referring to a particular private person; • Providing identifiable data to project officials, employees, and subcontractors only when disclosure is essential to accomplishing the research, evaluation, or statistical purposes of the project; • Requiring execution of a transfer agreement between the researcher and the recipient of the information before secondary disclosure is made to nonmembers of the project staff; Requiring a detailed justification for transfer of identifiable information to a nonmember of the project staff or to the sponsoring agency. See 28 C.F.R. §22.23, 22.24, and 22.26. Paragraph (e) requires applicants to indicate how the identifiable information will be protected against theft, fire, flood, and other national disasters. Crime Control Act of 1973 (Pub. Law 93-83) and the regulations proposed pursuant thereto. 28 C.F.R. §22 et.seq.; see also National Academy of Sciences, Protecting Individual Privacy in Evaluation Research 7 (1975); and P. Nejelski and H. Peyser, A Researcher's Shield Statute: Guarding Against the Compulsory Disclosure of Research Data (1974). The recommendation primarily addresses information collected directly from the individuals named in the records rather than the records themselves. The need for such immunity was forcefully outlined in the National Academy of Sciences report, supra: ... Some kind of legal protection of research must be considered, to guarantee that respondents who give information about themselves to researchers... need not fear that the information will be revealed to their detriment in a court or to an investigative body. Without such protection, it will become more and more difficult to obtain the information needed for valid evaluation of the effects of government programs. Identifiable information obtained for research, evaluative, or statistical purposes is excepted from the provisions on destruction of records outlined in Standard 1.56, so as to permit longitudinal and other long-term research studies as well as after-the-fact assessments. However, this exception is not intended to exempt individuals from the strong civil or criminal penalties which should apply to unauthorized disclosure of identifiable information pertaining to juveniles. 28 C.F.R. §22.29; and Crime Control Act at §524. In addition, the maintaining agency should terminate access rights whenever it determines that the study or any member of the staff thereof has violated the terms of the application or the rules and regulations regarding access. Like other administrative decisions, approvals or disapprovals of applications for access to records pertaining to juveniles should be subject to administrative and ultimately, Related Standards judicial review. The standard goes further than the provision proposed by the IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra, by recommending that approval as well as disapproval of an application should be subject to review at the request of a third party-e.g., the subject of an identifiable record or the Privacy Council. The final paragraph of the standard recommends that identifiable information collected during the course of a research, evaluative, or statistical study should be immune from subpoena or introduction as evidence in a judicial or administrative proceeding unless the consent of the subject of the information has been obtained. This follows §524(a) of the 1.31 1.32 1.51 1.52 1.53 1.531 Development of an Evaluation System Access to Police Records 1.532 Access to Court Records Access to Intake, Detention, Emergency Custody and 1.534 Access to Child Abuse Records 1.533 1.56 Destruction of Records 1.54 Completeness of Records Procedures should be developed to assure the completeness of of child abuse; to the intake unit; and to the agencies records maintained pursuant to Standard 1.52. Included in those procedures should be provisions requiring: a. That written notice of the disposition or dismissal of a delinquency, noncriminal misbehavior, or neglect and abuse complaint or petition be sent within 30 days to law enforcement, protective services, supervision, and other public agencies or programs involved in the investigation of the report complaint or petition, in the taking into custody, detention or custody of the juvenile, or in the supervision of the juvenile and/or family, and b. That the information contained in the notice be entered within 15 days of its receipt on any identifiable records pertaining to the juvenile which are maintained by such agencies. Sources: responsible for detention, custody, or supervision of the juvenile and/or family. The terms "disposition" and "dismissal" include failure to file a complaint following intervention or following investigation of report of child abuse; dismissal of a complaint by the intake unit with or without referral to services; dismissal of a complaint by the prosecutor because it is legally insufficient; dismissal of a petition by the prosecutor or the family court prior to adjudication; issuance of a dispositional order following adjudication; and dismissal of a petition following appeal. The standard requires that the notice be sent no more than thirty days after the dismissal or dispositional order is final, and that the record be corrected no more than fifteen days after the notice has been received. The Regulations on Criminal Justice Information Systems, 28 C.F.R. §20.21(a)(1) provide a nintyday notification period. The shorter ninty-day period was selected in order to be consistent with the strict time limits recommended throughout these standards. See Standard 3.161. See generally 28 C.F.R. §20.21(a) (1976); Search Group, Inc., Standards for Security and Privacy of Criminal Justice Information, §§17.1(b) and (c) (1975); Institute of Judicial Related Standards Administration/American Bar Association Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards, Standards Relating to Records and Information Systems, Standard 15.3(b) (tentative draft, 1977) [hereinafter cited as IJA/ABA, Information Systems]. Commentary 1.51 1.55 Security and Privacy of Records Collection and Retention of Records 2.221 Criteria for Referral to Intake-Delinquency 2.223 Misbehavior Intake-Noncriminal Criteria for Referral to Intake-Neglect and Abuse 2.241 Procedures Following a Decision Not to Refer to In order to minimize the risk of misinterpretation, records should be kept as accurate and complete as possible. This standard, together with Standard 1.55, urges agencies maintaining identifiable records pertaining to juveniles to institute procedures which will facilitate identification and correction of information which may be erroneous at the time of collection or which has become inaccurate or incomplete 2.341 with the passage of time. 2.321 2.321 Criteria for Referral to 3.141 Intake-Noncriminal Procedures Following a Decision Not to Refer to Organization of Intake Units This provision specifically addresses the problem of law enforcement and other records which note that a juvenile has been taken into custody but not the disposition which resulted. Paragraph (a) recommends that notice of a disposition or dismissal or of a delinquency, noncriminal misbehavior, or neglect and abuse petition or complaint, be sent to the agencies involved in taking a juvenile into custody, referring him/her to the intake unit, or investigating a report 4.11 Petition and Summons Determination of Probable Cause 1.55 Accuracy of Records Procedures should be developed to assure the accuracy of records maintained under Section 1.52. Included in those procedures should be provisions which permit the subject of an identifiable record to challenge its accuracy or completeness, and which provide for administrative and judicial review of a refusal by the maintaining agency to correct or destroy challenged information. Sources: See generally 28 C.F.R. §§20.21(a) and (g) (1975); Search Group, Inc., Standards for Security and Privacy of Criminal Justice Information, §§14.1(1975); Institute of Judicial Administration/American Bar Association Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards, Standards Relating to Records and Information Systems, Standards 2.6(A) and (B), 16.1, and 21.1 (tentative draft, 1977) [hereinafter cited as IJA/ABA, Information Systems.. Commentary source materials as well as the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C.A. §552a(d) (Supp. 1976) and other recent federal legislation. See, e.g., Family Educational Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C.A. §1232g(a)(2); and Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §1681i; see also National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Report of the Task Force on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Standard 28.1 (1976). Written rules should be issued governing inspection of and challenges to records. These rules should be well publicized. They might include reasonable requirements for verifying the identity of the person requesting access, prohibitions on access to investigative and intelligence information, see Standard 1.531, and appropriate limitations on access to information which could be considered harmful under Standards 1.533 and 1.534. There should also be provisions for administrative appeals of decisions not to correct or destroy a record, as well as judicial review for those few cases in which the administrative review process is unable to resolve the differences between the subject of the record and the maintaining agency. See Standards 1.54, 1.56; and 3.2; and Search Group, Inc., supra. 1.51 Security and Privacy of Records 1.52 Collection and Retention of Records 1.531 Access to Police Records 1.532 Access to Court Records 1.534 Access to Child Abuse Records 1.54 This standard calls upon all courts and agencies maintaining identifiable records pertaining to juveniles to Related Standards establish procedures for assuring that those records are accurate. These procedure should include data collection, entry, storage, and auditing methods which "will minimize the possibility of recording and storing inaccurate information and which require that upon the detection of "inaccurate information of a material nature," all individuals, courts agencies known to have received that information will be notified of it. Regulations on Criminal Justice Information Systems, 28 C.F.R. §20.21(a)(2); see also Standards 1.54 and 1.56. They should also include the right of the subject of a record to inspect it and challenge both its accuracy and the authority of the agency to maintain it. See Standards 1.52, and 1.531-1.534. This is in accord with the recommendations in the 1.56 Completeness of Records Destruction of Records 3.147 Notice of Decision 1.56 Destruction of Records The destruction of a record should be mandatory and should not be contingent upon receipt of a request by the subject of that record. Records retained under Standard 1.52 which result from the investigation, initiation, processing, and disposition of a delinquency complaint or petition, should be destroyed no more than five years after the date on which they were created unless: a. The allegations in the petition are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, in which case the records should be destroyed no more than five years after termination of the disposition imposed; or b. An adjudication is held at which the state fails to prove the allegations in the petition beyond a reasonable doubt, in which case the records should be destroyed immediately. Records retained under Standard 1.52 which result from the investigation, initiation, processing, or disposition of a noncriminal misbehavior complaint or petition, should be destroyed no more than five years after the date on which they were created or at the time the juvenile named in those records attains the statutory age of majority, whichever occurs first, unless an adjudication hearing is held at which the state fails to prove the allegations in the petition beyond a reasonable doubt, in which case the records should be destroyed immediately. Prior to destroying a record, the maintaining agency should advise the subject of the record that the record is being destroyed and that the subject and his/her family may inform any person or organization that with regard to the proceedings from which the record resulted, they were not arrested, held in custody, named in a complaint or petition adjudicated, or subject to a dispositional order of the family court. Notice of destruction of a record should also be sent to all persons, courts, agencies, and programs which may have copies of or notations regarding such records. Persons, courts, agencies and programs, receiving such a notice should promptly destroy all copies of the record or portion or notations thereof contained in their files, unless the information was obtained for research, evaluative, or statistical purposes pursuant to Standard 1.535. Source: See generally Institute of Judicial Administrative/American Bar Association Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards, Standards Relating to Records and Information Systems, Standards 17.1, 17.5, 17.6, and 17.7(A) (tentative draft, 1977) [hereinafter cited as IJA/ABA, Information Systems]. Commentary While accurate and complete records are necessary for the effective operation of the juvenile service system, such records can also result in a lifelong stigma because of youthful mistakes in judgment. Many job opportunities, or governmental agencies, are explicitly forclosed to those with juvenile records. A record involving a delinquency also can preclude membership in labor unions or apprentice programs, or licensing for regulated occupations. The difficulties in finding employment are rampant even in unskilled labor jobs and increase with the level of skill required. Moreover, a juvenile with a record often is prevented from obtaining the education or training necessary to make gainful employment possible. These disabilities are not the most devastating results of juvenile records; indirect economic and social effects resulting from adverse public sentiments rarely distinguished between a person merely arrested and then released and a person actually adjudicated a delinquent, for example. National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Report of the Task Force on Juvenile Justice Standards and Goals, 782 (1976) [hereinafter cited as Report of the Task Force]. Recognizing that the vast majority of juveniles who commit a delinquent offense do not pursue criminal careers, most sets of standards, model legislation, and many state codes provide for either sealing or destroying identifiable records pertaining to juveniles after a specified period of time has elapsed following termination of supervision. See, e.g., IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra; Report of the Task Force, supra; Institute of Judicial Administration/American Bar Association Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards, Standards Relating to Neglect and Abuse, Standard 3.4(B) (tentative draft, 1977) [hereinafter cited as IJA/ABA, Neglect]; U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Proposed Model Child Protection Act, §21(F) (draft, 1977); Uniform Juvenile Court Act, §57 (1968); Model Act for Family Courts, §48 (1975); and 18 U.S.C.A. §5038 (Supp. 1976); see also the Search Group, Inc., Standards for Security and Privacy of Criminal Justice Information, §18.4 (1975); and National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Criminal Justice System, §7.5 (1973) [hereinafter (expungement ten years after a felony conviction, five years cited as Criminal Justice System]. after a misdemeanor conviction). Those groups favoring sealing of records-i.e., removing the records from a routinely available status to a status requiring special procedures for access, Search Group Inc., supra at §18.2, argue that destruction of the records imposes an unnecessary impediment to long-term and retrospective research studies essential for determining the characteristics of delinquency and the factors contributing to the development of criminal careers; and makes it possible for individuals to prove, subsequent to the date of destruction, that they were acquitted, that the former charges were dismissed, or that rumors regarding past deliquent conduct are false or exaggerated. See Report of the Task Force, supra. On the other hand, it is argued that sealing records, in practice, is ineffective except as a way in which the maintaining agency can exclude those whom it does not wish to see the records from gaining access, and that the advantages of freeing persons from the burden of a record of youthful misconduct outweigh the relatively rare instances in which the record would be needed for research or exoneration. See generally IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra. While recommending that records be destroyed rather than sealed, the National Advisory Committee has sought to answer the problems which have been raised as well as the need of courts and corrections agencies for information about the acts of delinquency committed by young adults while they were under age eighteen. See Standard 3.114. Standard 1.56 recommends that with two exceptions, records resulting from the investigation, arrest, summoning, intake, detention, or charging of a youth alleged to have committed a delinquent act should be destroyed automatically within five years of their creation. Because of the need to provide some period beyond the termination of a dispositional order before a record is destroyed, premising destruction upon the application of the subject of a record is unlikely to be effective. The five-year maintenance period is based on the conclusion of the National Advisory Committee that the records arising from an adjudication of delinquency are of little relevance if the subject of those records has stayed out of trouble for five years, and that even in those instances in which the individual commits another offense during the maintenance period, information which is over five years old will be of only peripheral value. The recommendations of other groups vary regarding the time and other limits which should apply to expungement or sealing of records. Cf. IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra at Standard 17.3 (destruction two years after discharge if no charge is pending); Uniform Juvenile Court Act (sealing two years after discharge if the child is rehabilitated and moral turpitude was not involved); Model Act for Family Courts (five years unless another charge is pending); Proposed Model Child Protection Act (stripping of identifiers five years following submission of a child abuse report unless there has been a new report involving the family); IJA/ABA, Neglect, supra (stripping seven years after the original report); Search Group, Inc., supra (sealing or purging of records seven years after conviction of an adult for a felony, five years after conviction for a misdemeanor); Criminal Justice System, supra The first exception to the proposed five-year rule is when the juvenile has been adjudged delinquent as the result of an admission or the state having sustained its burden of proof at an adjudication hearing. In such instances, destruction of the records concerning the case should be delayed for up to five years after the expiration of the dispositional order. The second exception is when the state fails to sustain its burden of proof at the dispositional hearing. In such cases the records should be destroyed immediately. In noncriminal misbehavior cases, the standard provides that unless the family court finds that the state has failed to sustain its burden of proof, records resulting from the investigation, arrest, summoning, intake, detention, or charging of a youth or parent should be destroyed five years after their creation or when the juvenile reaches the age of majority specified by statute, whichever occurs first. As in delinquency cases, when a noncriminal misbehavior petition is dismissed for lack of proof at the adjudicatory stage of the proceedings, the records should be destroyed at once. No provision is made for immediate destruction of records when the arrest of a juvenile or the filing of a delinquency or noncriminal misbehavior petition or complaint does not result in an adjudication hearing, in order not to discourage referral of the juvenile to services and dismissal of the complaint at the intake stage of the proceedings. See Standards 3.142-3.144; but see, e.g., Search Group, Inc., supra; IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra at Standard 17.2(A) and (B); and Model Act for Family Courts. The standard requires that prior to destruction, a notice should be sent to the person to whom it pertains. This is to assure that the subject of a record has an opportunity to obtain a copy so that he/she will later be able to prove what he/she did or did not do, or the results of any evaluations or diagnoses documented in dispositional records. See IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra at Standard 17.6. Following the position adopted by the Task Force to Develop Standards and Goals for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the standard urges that the subject of a record and his/her family should be entitled to deny that any of the matters to which the record refers, ever occurred. As noted in the commentary to the Task Force provision, this is not intended as a pardon. Rather, it is designed to allow the errors of youth to be forgotten and to avoid hindering a person's ability to find a job and become a productive member of society. Cf. IJA/ABA, Information Systems, supra at Standards 17.6(B) and 17.7(B). Finally, the standard provides for notifying persons, courts, and agencies which have had access to a particular record in accordance with Standards 1.531-1.535, that the record has been destroyed and that they are obligated to destroy any copies or references to it contained in their files. An exception is made, however, for identifiable information obtained for research, evaluative, and statistical purposes under Standard 1.535. As noted above, this exception is to permit longitudinal and other long-term research studies as well as after-the-fact assessments. In making this limited exception, the National Advisory Committee recognized that based on past |