In some states they look away...I am not sure it is legal for a seventeen year old to leave home in any state unless that state has an emancipation statute and a judge emancipates them. Just last month I was talking to a mother whose seventeen year old daughter had left home and she said the police said they would not get involved with it although it is not legal...Many states especially look the other way when the minor is only a few months from being eighteen. I think in New York the police enforce it....so it depends on what state you are in.