§ 43-245 — Terms, defined

Nebraska § 43-245

• Jurisdiction: Nebraska
• Ch. 43: Infants and Juveniles

Text

For purposes of the Nebraska Juvenile Code, unless the context otherwise requires:
(1) Abandonment means a parent's intentionally withholding from a child, without just cause or excuse, the parent's presence, care, love, protection, and maintenance and the opportunity for the display of parental affection for the child;
(2) Age of majority means nineteen years of age;
(3) Alternative to detention means a program or directive that increases supervision of a youth in the community in an effort to ensure the youth attends court and refrains from committing a new law violation. Alternative to detention includes, but is not limited to, electronic monitoring, day and evening reporting centers, house arrest, tracking, family crisis response, and temporary shelter placement. Except for the use of manually controlled delayed egress of not more than thirty seconds, placements that utilize physical construction or hardware to restrain a youth's freedom of movement and ingress and egress from placement are not considered alternatives to detention;
(4) Approved center means a center that has applied for and received approval from the Director of the Office of Dispute Resolution under section 25-2909 ;
(5) Civil citation means a noncriminal notice which cannot result in a criminal record and is described in section 43-248.02 ;
(6) Cost or costs means (a) the sum or equivalent expended, paid, or charged for goods or services, or expenses incurred, or (b) the contracted or negotiated price;
(7) Criminal street gang means a group of three or more people with a common identifying name, sign, or symbol whose group identity or purposes include engaging in illegal activities;
(8) Criminal street gang member means a person who willingly or voluntarily becomes and remains a member of a criminal street gang;
(9) Custodian means a nonparental caretaker having physical custody of the juvenile and includes an appointee described in section 43-294 ;
(10) Detention means the temporary care of a juvenile in a physically restrictive facility designed with constructions or fixtures to control the movement of the juvenile to secure the juvenile's lawful custody;
(11) Guardian means a person, other than a parent, who has qualified by law as the guardian of a juvenile pursuant to testamentary or court appointment, but excludes a person who is merely a guardian ad litem;
(12) Juvenile means any person under the age of eighteen;
(13) Juvenile court means the separate juvenile court where it has been established pursuant to sections 43-2,111 to 43-2,127 and the county court sitting as a juvenile court in all other counties. Nothing in the Nebraska Juvenile Code shall be construed to deprive the district courts of their habeas corpus, common-law, or chancery jurisdiction or the county courts and district courts of jurisdiction of domestic relations matters as defined in section 25-2740 ;
(14) Juvenile detention facility has the same meaning as in section 83-4,125 ;
(15) Legal custody has the same meaning as in section 43-2922 ;
(16) Mental health facility means a treatment facility as defined in section 71-914 or a government, private, or state hospital which treats mental illness;
(17) Nonoffender means a juvenile who is subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court for reasons other than legally prohibited conduct, including, but not limited to, juveniles described in subdivision (3)(a) of section 43-247 ;
(18) Parent means one or both parents or stepparents when the stepparent is married to a parent who has physical custody of the juvenile as of the filing of the petition;
(19) Parties means the juvenile as described in section 43-247 and his or her parent, guardian, or custodian;
(20) Physical custody has the same meaning as in section 43-2922 ;
(21) Except in proceedings under the Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Act, relative means father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, stepfather, stepmother, stepbrother, stepsister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, or niece;
(22) Restorative justice means practices, programs, or services that emphasize repairing the harm caused to victims and the community by persons who have caused the harm or committed an offense. Restorative justice practices may include, but are not limited to, victim youth conferencing, victim-offender mediation, youth or community dialogue, panels, circles, and truancy mediation;
(23) Restorative justice facilitator means a qualified individual who has been trained to facilitate restorative justice practices. A qualified individual shall be approved by the referring county attorney, city attorney, or juvenile or county court judge. Factors for approval may include, but are not limited to, an individual's education and training in restorative justice principles and practices; experience in facilitating restorative justice sessions; understanding of the necessity to do no harm to either the victim or the person who harmed the victim; and proven commitment to ethical practices;
(24) Seal a record means that a record shall not be available to the public except upon the order of a court upon good cause shown;
(25) Secure detention means detention in a highly structured, residential, hardware-secured facility designed to restrict a juvenile's movement;
(26) Staff secure juvenile facility means a juvenile residential facility operated by a political subdivision (a) which does not include construction designed to physically restrict the movements and activities of juveniles who are in custody in the facility, (b) in which physical restriction of movement or activity of juveniles is provided solely through staff, (c) which may establish reasonable rules restricting ingress to and egress from the facility, and (d) in which the movements and activities of individual juvenile residents may, for treatment purposes, be restricted or subject to control through the use of intensive staff supervision. Staff secure juvenile facility does not include any institution operated by the Department of Correctional Services;
(27) Status offender means a juvenile who has been charged with or adjudicated for conduct which would not be a crime if committed by an adult, including, but not limited to, juveniles charged under subdivision (3)(b) of section 43-247 and sections 53-180.01 and 53-180.02 ;
(28) Traffic offense means any nonfelonious act in violation of a law or ordinance regulating vehicular or pedestrian travel, whether designated a misdemeanor or a traffic infraction; and
(29) Young adult means an individual older than eighteen years of age but under twenty-one years of age.

Legislative History

Source: Laws 1981, LB 346, § 1; Laws 1985, LB 447, § 11; Laws 1987, LB 638, § 1; Laws 1989, LB 182, § 9; Laws 1996, LB 1296, § 20; Laws 1997, LB 622, § 62; Laws 1998, LB 1041, § 20; Laws 1998, LB 1073, § 11; Laws 2000, LB 1167, § 11; Laws 2004, LB 1083, § 91; Laws 2009, LB63, § 28; Laws 2010, LB800, § 12; Laws 2013, LB561, § 6; Laws 2014, LB464, § 7; Laws 2014, LB908, § 3; Laws 2015, LB265, § 2; Laws 2016, LB894, § 1; Laws 2019, LB595, § 23; Laws 2025, LB530, § 10. Effective Date: September 3, 2025 Cross References: Nebraska Indian Child Welfare Act, see section 43-1501. Annotations: Because an order for electronic monitoring may be challenged at any time, such an order does not affect a substantial right and is not final. In re Interest of Sayrah P., 315 Neb. 436, 996 N.W.2d 623 (2023). Electronic monitoring is an alternative to detention and not itself detention for purposes of subsection (3) of this section. In re Interest of Sayrah P., 315 Neb. 436, 996 N.W.2d 623 (2023). The language of subsection (2) (now subsection (11)) of this section is not exclusive; it merely identifies the necessary parties to a juvenile proceeding. The grandparents of a child subject to dependency proceedings under section 43-247 are entitled to intervene as a matter of right in the proceedings. In re Interest of Kayle C. & Kylee C., 253 Neb. 685, 574 N.W.2d 473 (1998). A custodial parent's live-in boyfriend or girlfriend is not a "parent." In re Interest of Ethan M., 15 Neb. App. 148, 723 N.W.2d 363 (2006).