If a 16 year old child is living away from parents, the child can ask a court to become emancipated, which means free from the control of his or her parents. An emancipated teenager can live where he wants, work and control earnings received, sue others and enter contracts. However, an emancipated minor must still meet the normal age requirements for voting and drinking alcoholic beverages. Parents must usually consent to a child's request for emancipation. The constitutional rights of teenagers are more limited than those of adults.
Teenagers also lose certain rights at school.
There are limits on the way teens can act and dress, and teens have less of a right to keeping things private while they are in school. Teachers can search students' private areas in school more easily than officers can search adults outside of the school setting. Teenagers who commit crimes have until recently been treated differently than adults. Trials are held in secret, sentences occur in juvenile detention facilities, and normally end soon after the child reaches adulthood. But recent changes have allowed judges to try more juveniles who commit serious crimes as if they were adults, so that they may go to jail for much longer periods of time, and receive criminal records which follow them for life.