Runaway friend

[Unregistered]

So I got a call from a family friend who helps police in his off time he called to tell me my friend had ran away from home earlier in the day and if I had heard from her to tell him. Well she had been contacting me off one of our friends phones, Sue's (fake name to keep anonymous) phone, and not hers. Turns out she went on foot somewhere and Sue picked her up. So Sue and my friend go to Sue's house but no one knew until just recently. Sue's dad is out of town so he had no idea about any of this happening. Will Sue get in trouble, like jail time for harboring my friend? I got a call saying my friend was on her way home so Sue had to be driving her home, I told my friend who lives not to far from my friend and she said she just heard the police pass her house and sounded like they were headed towards my friends house. So I was wondering will Sue get arrested for harboring my friend? Sue knew that my friend was running away to.

[ccsmod13]

RE: Runaway friend

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to the National Runaway Safeline and sharing with us some of what is going on. It sounds like your friends have a lot going on and you are doing a great job reaching out for some clarification.

You had asked if your friend Sue would get arrested for harboring your other friend. We are not legal experts, but we can speak in general terms what could happen. To start off with, running away is not a criminal offense, it is a status offense. This means that your friend cannot leave home without parental permission because she is under the age of 18 (Generally the age of an adult is 18 and anything under that is considered a minor). If your friend decided to leave, which is sounds like she did, then her parents would have the option of filing a runaway report with your local police department. If she is found then the police will bring her back home to her parents. Anyone that she is caught with could be charged with harboring a runaway by her parents or the police. We cannot say what the police in this situation would do, but we recommend calling your local police department and generally asking them how they would handle this case.

We hoped this helped and if you would like to discuss your situation in greater detail you can always give us a call on our 24/7 hotline or you can try to chat with us during our chat hours. We can also make the call to the police department to ask those questions for you. We hoped this helped and we look forward to hearing from you.

NRS