Q: Please I need an answer
How can a 15 year old runaway girl press charges on her 17 and a half year old ex who physically and verbally abused her, without it affecting his mother. I understand that his mother would get into problems as well for harboring a run away, but the 15 year old girl is only trying to go against her son. Could there be a way?
A: Physical abuse can be a crime but verbal abuse is not. You can report a crime to police but you have no control over what, if anything, the police do with your information. The police might go after the boy, the mother, the girl who ran away, just two of them, all of them, or none of them. Pressing charges really just means cooperating with the police and prosecution. By the same token, "dropping charges" really only means refusing to cooperate. A prosecutor can get a court order called a subpoena to force a person to either testify or go to jail.
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