by Tala Kamil | staff writer

Even though students may not think about the consequences of committing a crime, they can follow them through the rest of your life.

“Every single person has a record of their action from the past whether they’re clean or there’s something on there anything on there as minor as a traffic ticket, as serious as a felony crime,” Officer Castanon said.

Misdemeanors are more of the lesser crimes, while felony is more of the serious crimes.

“When it comes to getting a license, the big word is ‘convicted of’, you have to be convicted of something to have that go on your record, just being accused of it you might be able to get a license, but if you’re ever convicted of, there are some places that won’t hire you if you’ve been convicted of crimes, usually misdemeanors you can get away with it if its been over a couple of years but a felony stays there and doesn’t get off of your record,” Castanon said.

Expungement is a type of a lawsuit that allows records to be sealed and hidden throughout the state or federal resources.

“At 18, most cases are sealed. Although juvenile records are sealed, it is possible they could be expunged for high level security clearances,” LPSCS teacher Bianca Edwards said.

Crimes can get in the way when applying for college.

“Depending on where you apply they may not allow somebody with certain criminal acts in the past. Class C are usually the traffic tickets and stuff like that [fine only], when you move to class B and A you usually move into serious . usually that’s enough to not get you admitted into certain place you want to go, you have to be convicted of that,” Castanon said.

Having a criminal record makes it harder to find a job.

“It’s not impossible but the job you may want may not be there because if it’s certain jobs (even if you have a criminal record) they may hire you but it may not be exactly what you want to do, but a lot of employers these days  want a criminal background check when you apply so that they know everything you did and if you don’t like anything you did in the past, they may not hire you because of that reason,” Castanon said.

Students should think twice before committing a crime.

“Avoid anything illegal. It doesn’t matter if its a class C or if it’s a felony; if it’s against the law, then students should worry,” Castanon said.