I was thinking about stories I’ve read in which a minor child ran away from some intolerable situation at home and somehow managed to avoid being returned by the authorities. I wonder how plausible that is these days, with all the identification methods available.
In modern times, say, 1970 and later, has there ever been a case when a school-age minor child has been found by local authorities, refused to divulge who they were or where they lived, and the authorities were unable to find out where to send them home? Let’s limit this to first-world countries, and no immigrant situations; I’m interested in learning about kids who obviously were from the country where they were found (or at least the authorities believed so).
I’ve tried googling, and all that comes up are cases of unidentified bodies and babies too young to talk intelligibly.
Minors are up to 17 years old. Someone who looks like an adult is not going to be found by any authorities unless they interact with them somehow. It’s a little trickier if adults attempt to take in a runaway, they will have great difficulty enrolling them in school and other activities. But kids can be home schooled, doctors don’t demand identification for children, so again, it requires some interaction with authorities somehow for anything to be done.
Not quite what the OP is looking for and definitely does not match same country criteria. There is a case currently of an Ukrainian girl with Dwarfism that was adopted, who was supposed to be 6 or 8 but had pubic hair and periods. Child exhibited very disturbing and hostile behavior. Parents had age legally changed to an adult and now years later are being charged with child abandonment.
Never had to worry about it, but what do you need to register a child for school? (How does that work with children whose parents are not legal residents?) Sooner or later the child will need documentation - birth certificate or similar proof of age. they might last until 18 if they don’t want a driver’s license.
There have been whole threads about establishing identity without any papers; it’s become a vicious catch-22 since 9-11. You need a birth certificate to get a driver’s license. As an adult, you need some identification to get a birth certificate nowadays. Your life will leave a paper trail, so if someone is truly curious, there will be gaps. To open a bank account now you need a SSN. To get one of those, AFAIK you need a birth certificate. Presumably the runaway’s need is to hide until 18, then they can resume their identity?
A younger child trying to survive on their own will need some sort of adult help for all sorts of things. An adult harboring a child which appeared out of nowhere would have problems, even as mundane as charges for lying on government forms if found out - like those home schooling registration forms. It seems decades ago, this was not illegal or was not typically prosecuted. All might be fine until some nosey neighbor comes along or they attract the attention of the police, or child and family services. At that point, the “I aint sayin’ nuttin’” defence would probably run into the DNA pool which wouldn’t have been a problem 20 years ago. It also occurs to me that a lot of self-reliance was easier 50 years ago when there were some jobs for children. (I used to deliver papers and caddy - both pretty much obsolete these days; and even working at McD’s requires a SSN) Living costs serious money and it’s not easy to come by. Assorted shelters probably have a lot of do-gooders who would call the authorities if some child spent too much time getting free meals or looking for donated free clothing. Any child nowadays is a sitting duck for exploitation.
I thought it went without saying that of course it’s very difficult for a minor child to run away and totally avoid notice by the authorities, and the younger the child is, the more likely someone with reason to care will notice they’re not where they belong. So I didn’t ask about that. My question was about what happens afterwards, when the authorities catch the kid. In particular, what happens when they can’t ID the kid and the kid is not helping?
Is this to challenge the premise of the movie Shazam!, where we’re expected to believe that this very scenario played out with an appalling lack of effort on the part of authorities to find the the main character’s mother?
“I mean, gosh, kid, we spent a whole two hours waiting here for your mother. I guess that makes you an orphan now…”
How do the Authorities know the kid is a runaway if they can’t identify him enough to find him in a list of reported runaways? And if they do think he’s a runaway/homeless kid, what if he just says, “I’m Joey Snuffy, I live around here and my address is none of your business. I haven’t committed any crimes that you know of, so how about you just run along and nab some bad guys”?
I haven’t seen that movie yet, so no. It’s on my list of movies I’d like to see in the near future, so no more unboxed spoilers, please.
I see some speculation here on what might could happen to such a kid found by the authorities. The idea that a kid could get caught up in the criminal justice system by being charged with truancy and/or vagrancy is quite interesting. Can anyone point to any real documented cases of a minor John or Jane Doe since 1970 or so?
in the 70s and earlier it was easy for a kid to get “lost” there was no national database heck there were barley any in-state databases unless a kid was arrested and not even them sometimes
thats one reason when the organized prostitution rings used underage girls they moved them out of the state and county because it was impossible to track down a real idenity even if they were arrested
and when they were they’d just give a fake name… someone would post bail and they’d disappear … Now days the fbi is involved and makes record-keeping more accessable
Worst case - assuming no serious crime - they put the kid in a foster care / group home setting and off he goes again… Only now his picture (and prints?) are in the system. Like trafficked underage prostitutes, he too would have to keep moving to a different town as each local police department became familiar with him. I assume they’d only put up with “runaway from foster home” so many times before they find somewhere more secure or else give up and let him go.
But you’re still stuck with the question - how does a runaway kid support himself? Not too many options that don’t eventually end with an arrest, and any attempt to exploit charity will sooner or later attract the unwanted attention of do-gooders who get the authorities involved. The obvious solution hinges on the local age of consent and what happens otherwise.
