What is the difference between [minor] and [juvenile-law]?

Question

On the main site we have [minor]

Use this tag for questions related to the law for minors, i.e. persons who have not reached the age of majority (usually 16, 18, or 21 years).

and [juvenile-law], which has no usage guidance.

I am not sure whether there is a useful distinction that could be drawn. Perhaps juvenile-law should be a synonym, but if not, it should certainly have usage guidance.

(There is also [children], typically for use in family law context, and [child] which is deprecated, so confusion there is unlikely if used properly. I am doing some work cleaning up [child] at the moment.)

Answer 1

To me, the term "juvenile law" is connected with or is an alternative term for the youth criminal justice system (e.g. in Canada, the Act covering this area has changed from the Juvenile Delinquents Act, to the Young Offenders Act, to the Youth Criminal Justice Act).

On a quick review, 11 of the 12 questions currently tagged juvenile-law seem to use it in that sense. I agree that usage guidance would be helpful. I've given it a first draft:

To be used for questions relating to youth criminal justice systems. For questions about minors more broadly, use the tag [minor]; or if it relates to their status as a child in family law, use the tag [children].

"Minor" seems broader to me and could relate to all sorts of age-of-majority distinctions: voting, liquor, consent to treatment, conscription, etc. That's consistent with the current usage guidance.