Running Away Or Skipping School Could Get A Kid Locked Up. Now That's Changing.

In Kentucky, running away from home or constantly skipping school could get a kid locked up in a juvenile hall for days. Those acts, called status offenses, aren't exactly serious crimes, but for years Kentucky and other states treated them like they were.

That first brush with the juvenile justice system can often lead to more trouble if authorities focus on punishment, not the underlying reasons for the bad behavior.

But there's growing evidence that the tough approach doesn't work. Kentucky has joined many other states that are trying something different.

"We've got a lot of training on this," says Lucinda Masterton, a Fayette County Family Court judge, based in Lexington. " I don't know of any judges who believe that you should lock up kids to teach 'em a lesson—especially status kids that we're dealing with."

Nationally, the number of status offense complaints filed against juveniles reached their peak in the early 2000s. They've since been on the decline as research about status offenses and the factors surrounding them deepens.

The status offense that tops