Can a 5 and 7 year old be sent to juvenile?
I live in Ohio and my ex lives in Indiana. My 5 and 7 year olds were at their fathers for visitation time. Two weeks ago they broke out a neighbors window while left in the backyard with their 11 year old stepbrother. Now again the 3 children were left alone and broke out 2 more windows. My ex who only has visitation everyother weekend says that if i dont give him money for the broken windows then he is going to tell the neighbors to prosacute the children and he says they will be take to a juvenile hall where i will not see them. Can the children be taken from me for his act of neglagence? Am i also responcable for the windows?
Answers:
As a juvenile probation officer in Indiana, I can tell you that it is unlikely that a judge would allow a 5 year old or a 7 year old to get placed in juvenile detention for breaking a window.
Here's what would happen if he calls the police to report it.
The police will contact the neighbor to take a report, and to see if the neighbor wants to press charges. The police will then tell the father to bring the kids to the police station where they will interview the kids. The police will probably decide that the 11 year old was the instigator, and that the 5 & 7 year olds were too young to be criminally liable.
The 11 year old and his parent (your exes' current wife) will be given a Promise to Appear telling them when to go to the county probation department for a Preliminary Inquiry. (I'll explain this below)
The police officer will then contact the juvenile probation officer on call, and ask if the probation officer wants to detain the child. The probation officer is the one who makes the decision. There are only a few reasons why the PO would request that the child be detained:
1) The child is a danger to himself or the community (which this would not be since he was not arrested in the act of doing the offense),
2) The parents can not be located or refuses to take the child,
or
3) The child has a reason to request that he/she not be returned home.
BTW, the parent will be paying for the time while the child is in juvenile hall, also known as the detention center. For our county, it's $100 a day. If the kid goes in at 11 pm on Tuesday night, and then goes to court at 9 am on Wednesday, that's considered 2 days so $200.
On the extremely unlikely chance that the judge did decide to
If the police decide to go ahead and arrest the 5 & 7 year old, the same thing happens. If dad refuses to take the kids, or the kids refuse to go own, I'd bet a million dollars that the probation officer would put them in a foster home or youth shelter overnight until an emergency court hearing could be held the next day. You would be called and asked to come get the kids since dad refuses to care for them. They would be released into your custody. (This would be great ammo for you to use to get dad placed on supervised visitation, in my opinion.)
The kid would have to have a detention hearing in court before the judge within 48 hours for an offense such as criminal mischief, which is what this would be. The judge would rule whether or not there was a reasonable cause to detain the child. In my experience, in Indiana, there isn't a judge who would think it appropriate to detain a 5 or 7 year old for something like this.
On the extremely unlikely chance that the police decide to go ahead and arrest the 5 & 7 year old, the same thing happens. If dad refuses to take the kids, or the kids refuse to go own, I'd bet a million dollars that the probation officer would put them in a foster home overnight until an emergency court hearing could be held the next day. You would be called and asked to come get the kids since dad refuses to care for them. They would be released into your custody. (This would be great ammo for you to use to get dad placed on supervised visitation, in my opinion.)
If the police do arrest the child, but doesn't go to detention, the Promise to Appear orders the child and the parent to appear in the probation office at a specified time and date. At that time, the PO will interview the child and the parent and make a recommendation to the prosecutor on how to handle the case.
The options are:
1) Dismiss the case, and it goes away (which I'd bet they would do for the younger kids),
2) Informal Adjustment (probation without going to court if the child admits the offense to the PO),
3) Petition filed, meaning the juvenile has to go to court in front of the judge on the charges,
4) Refer the child to another agency, which usually means contacting the local Dept of Child Services because there is a problem in the home.
Tthe prosecutor in charge of juvenile cases would have to decide if he/she wants to file charges against the juvenile, based on the probation officer's recommendation. If charges are filed, both parents will get served a petition to appear in court with the child.
If a petition does get filed, in Indiana, ALL JUVENILES are entitled to an attorney regardless of family income. Ask for one.
If all this happens, and charges are filed in court against the child, the juvenile AND HIS PARENTS will be responsible for paying for any losses suffered by the neighbor. That means dad would be ordered to pay since the kids were in his custody at the time of the offense. And his wife will also be paying on behalf of her child.
So, after writing all that, my advice to you is to just say whatever and not give him any money.
What county does your ex live in? I just want to know if it's mine, but, due to my position, I don't want to list my county. Hope you understand.
And they are his kids?
No he can't make you pay this and I highly highly doubt that they would get in any real trouble for this at their age.
That is obnoxious! You need to get him on tape and revoke his visitation. He sounds like an overbearing ***.
he should be responsible for the windows because the children where under his supervision at the time
The state can take them but odds are they will just tell the neighbors to file civil charges against him ( the father) since he was the person responsible for the children at the time he is the one who will have to pay to fix them.
Nope...they're too young. I was once working with an 11 year old who committed an armed robbery but was too young to go to a juvenile facility. What would more likely happen if you went to court is you and your ex would be referred for services like parenting classes to help yuou learn to manage and supervise the kids. I bet that it would not ocme to that though. I'm curious why your ex would not be responsible for the windows since he was the one in charge of supervising them at the time?
Since he is their parent and they were under his supervision, you have no responsibility to pay for the windows.
I would contact the police in the area where your ex lives. Indicate that you are working with the children and want to resolve this issue and find out if charges were filed. If they are, you can work with the courts there to deal with the situation instead of working with your ex.
I would also contact your attorney. He is apparently leaving his children with improper supervision. You can request that his visits be supervised.
As to the replacement of the windows -- you wouldn't be responsible for them in any way. The children may be, but at that age probably won't be held responsible. Be sure, however, to indicate to the children that it is unacceptable behavior and punish them for their behavior even while they are at your home (e.g. no TV for a month -- this is pretty serious) so they know that being bad at Dad's is wrong as much as it is being bad at your place.
If he was the one to be looking after the children during the incident he is at fault. You handed over the responsibility of the children to him for that period of time meaning that he accepts all liability for the children's actions. If the neighbor files a report about it your ex will be hit with negligence and possibly lose his visitation rights.
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