Actually I was referring to the fact that Taylor was enganging in vigilantism using the a too broad freetime rule, which the PRT can at least probe to the level of asking a warrant from a judge simply by recording the vigilante's voice and comparing it to Taylor which as both Law Enforcement and their legal guardians would be legal to adquire on both ends, and that in the specific scenario the Protectorate would inform Jim about it before they making an strategy to stop her with minimal disruption. If Jim protects the right to free unsupervised time for Taylor without taking in consideration she is using the loophole of a regulation to put herself in personal danger and then that danger becomes something serious then there is a very real chance that his own superiors would fire him.
I know what you were referring to. Again, it doesn't matter, chiefly because you're misrepresenting said regulation and because you're pretending Taylor is a full Ward. Wards, as per the actual excerpt from the chapter and not a frankly horrific paraphrasing, can strictly not maintain a secondary persona. Taylor does not have a primary one, yet. She has a temporary one, that they had to creatively bruteforce through the system to get her the ability to move about the facility on her own because
it was not designed to treat such identities as legitimate ones, so she does not, in point of fact, have an actual legitimate Ward persona. That key element is referenced repeatedly, by multiple people in multiple points of view. It's why this is called Taylor utilizing a loophole, and not her explicitly breaking said regulation. You can argue that as a grey zone, but since a legitimately vast portion of every aspect of society operates off even greyer loopholes and nobody really giving a damn, I doubt it'd be worth it. It certainly wouldn't be done with a legal or logical basis.
It's obviously something they wouldn't like, but didn't think to explicitly ban because they're too arrogant to assume they'd get anyone that wasn't a kool-aid drinker or more in Sophia's position as a legitimate probationary ward / juvenile offender type ward of the state who actually is bound by law to obey their orders or off to jail they go.
You want to keep on in that general theme, find an actual legitimate foundation. That one regulation isn't it, not for Taylor, and not for your current track.
I'm not sure why you'd bother bringing up Jim with regards to that baseless warrant, either. Particularly in the context of defending a valid regulation under grounds that despite any and all other activities one can engage in, regardless of location, carrying summarily equivalent risks to one's health and well-being by nature of reality, much less a setting with individuals who can be classed as city+ level threats, that this one particular thing is untenable...
Since it's also amazing how you so willfully neglect the worldbuilding showcasing explicitly how a similar regulation, in point of fact, inherently protects something that can and was construed by the bureaucrats as undeniably more dangerous than say, walking, or using public transportation. All of which she's had to do during their hours, making any danger done during her private time functionally irrelevant. As far as the legalities (assuming say, the author retcons the regulation to explicitly cover even Wards without an official persona, which is expressly why none of your defense matters thus far), in the end Taylor might not actually care because they can't legitimately do anything to her beyond further expound her justifications toward them being as bad or worse than living out of a cardboard box (or gang flophouse).
Also worth taking into account that the YG is a watchdog, but one focused in protecting a specific set of rights within the Wards program. In fact their stated first priority is towards safety, essencial and secondary needs, education and then identity. Meaning that by their own rulebook they need to first address situations that put the Ward in danger, such as the Ward using a loophole in a passtime rule to go to unregulated, unsupported patrols. In such circumstances I can see that if they get in a Catch 22 situation such as the one Taylor is imposing by using an ill defined ruling to do something undeniably more dangerous than a Ward patrol since her own versions of patrols are without the benefit of training (which she has refused to take alongside even the most basic testing), in dangerous areas, and without means of getting any kind of back-up they will need to patch the rule themselves, simply by forbidding enthusiastic walks in the middle of gang territory before a canny pro-PRT senator finds out and makes an scandal specifically to change the rules to something a lot less favorable towards the Wards who are not abusing the rules.
That's not worth taking into account because it doesn't alter the fundamental definition of what they are and how they operate. Their first stated priority is safety, but pretending that demands military/police training is explicitly counter to their general intent, and is why as we see in this fic, is in a score of things that aren't mandatory.
You know, like the very reason behind that regulation existing so that the charges of the PRT/Protectorate can actually be more than tools in a tray. Or how she can actually legitimately sit there and not go through with power testing / et al, regardless of how speciously people pretend merely having them means she's a breath away from violently dying. Or that walking down the street at a specific time is so lethal she has to do it with the club.
Sure, a pro-prt senator could cause a scandal. Doesn't really matter though, since it would merely punish Phase, and not automatically imprison her as a villain.
Also the fines and punishments the YG can impose are limited by nature, especially in a squeaky clean department such as Boston, in this case first offense is basically reduced hours from the Ward, a 10K fine and sensitivity training, which is not too bad for a relatively well funded department. Not too bad, and administrative punishments to government offices usually got a mechanism to complain about onerous or misguided punishment, such as breaking a PRT rule about free time when a ward of state is using said rule for breaking far more serious regulations regarding vigilantism (and if the YG lacks rules about solo, unsupervised, patrols of Wards I'll eat my hat) which would put Jim in the middle of a controversy that might not go his way, which is why I believe it would be on his personal and professional interest for him to do something to help stop Taylro from going to unsanctioned patrols.
Since I already covered the PRT "rule breaking" above;
Considering Taylor expressly decides not to inform Jim about her plans, why the fuck does it matter what rules the Youth Guard have? Again, he's not and is not supposed to be a mind reader, so short of her saying something, he is entirely without blame there. Especially again if we're talking about regulations crafted almost to the letter to concern full Wards or bad Wards only, and not those who have no intention whatsoever to engage in the circus act. I'm not sure what you expect him to do, especially given that, as of yet not a certainty how fanatical he is to relative YG hardcoreness, he could deliberately act "against" their interests even moreso than he already is by doing his job.
Furthermore, you have to be completely mental if you think the PRT is actually going to bother involving the Youth Guard to that degree when it comes to trying to tamp down on Ghost if that's the route they choose to take with Phase, since the only individual other than Taylor who has expressed not resenting their existence still rejoices in avoiding them via obfuscation and misdirection.
For all your talk of political games, you seem to be neglecting that the YG might consider risking Phase/Ghost in light of the bigger picture. As I said, risk assessment and hypotheticals.
