Runaway
Definition
A child who leaves home or a lawful placement without permission; treated in most modern systems as a welfare concern rather than an offence.
Related terms
- Curfew Violation
- Presence in a public place by a minor after a locally fixed evening hour, enforced through municipal or local ordinances rather than...
- Decriminalisation
- The formal removal of conduct from the category of offence, here applied to the movement away from treating status conduct as court...
- Status Offence
- An act that is only unlawful because the person committing it is a minor, such as truancy or running away from home,...
- Truancy
- Habitual unexcused absence from compulsory schooling, historically handled as a court matter and increasingly diverted to school-based or administrative responses.
- Vagrancy
- Being without a fixed home, visible means of subsistence or, for a child, a responsible adult guardian; in many codes this was...
- Diversion
- Handling a child's case outside formal judicial proceedings, for example through caution, mediation or community-based measures, so that the criminal process itself...