Juvenile Records To Be Destroyed In Craighead County

At least 50 years’ worth of juvenile court records in Craighead County may be headed to the ash heap as county officials find a way to destroy the records.

Circuit Clerk Candace Edwards, R-Jonesboro, spoke Monday night to Craighead County justices about the issue.

Edwards said several employees in her office were recently undergoing training for a computer system when they found out about the law, Arkansas Code Annotated 9-27-309.

Under the law, all juvenile records must be destroyed within a certain period of time.

The criminal records for a juvenile charged as a juvenile must be destroyed when the juvenile turns 21 years old, while the records of a juvenile charged as an adult must be destroyed 10 years after they turn 21 or plead guilty to the offense, Edwards said.

According to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, most if not all juvenile records including court and adoption records, are closed to the public.

When asked by justices how many records that would involve, Edwards said, “thousands of records.”

While not discussing any specific case, Edwards said the county’s computer system may have as many as 700 juvenile records on file since 2012.

Edwards told justices that the law requires the records to be destroyed, that she is talking with other counties as to how they get rid of their files and that it appeared that Craighead County did not destroy any juvenile documents before January 2015.

Edwards said she expects to have a solution to the issue before the court’s next meeting on Sept. 8.

IT ISSUES
At least three justices asked for further information about the county’s information technology system after a pair of contentious meetings on the issue.

Justices voted 7-3, with two abstaining and one absent, on Aug. 10 to use the state bid process to update the county’s IT system.

On Monday night, justices Garry Meadows, R-Goobertown, Josh Longmire, R-Jonesboro and Billie Sue Hoggard, R-Jonesboro, brought up the issue.

Meadows asked for a third-party to come in and look at the computer system, while Longmire asked for people working on the project to attend the Sept. 8 meeting.

Hoggard asked County Judge Ed Hill if he could set up a tour of the county’s IT system to allow justices to learn about it.

Hill said he would set up a tour as quickly as possible.

Justices also took no action after hearing a presentation on county employee insurance rates by Stephens Insurance.