Audit  Audit of the Juvenile Court Department

In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of the Juvenile Court Department (JCD) for the period November 5, 2018 through March 15, 2020. The objectives of this audit were to determine whether JCD abided by Section 54A of Chapter 119 of the General Laws by offering pretrial diversion to juveniles and whether JCD placed juveniles in restraints during court proceedings only when necessary, as required by Section 86(b) of Chapter 119 of the General Laws.

Because of constraints we encountered in obtaining the information necessary to perform our audit work, we could not draw conclusions about these objectives. Specifically, we could not determine whether JCD used a pretrial diversion model to prevent recidivism or whether it complied with Section 86(b) of Chapter 119 of the General Laws regarding the use of restraints during court proceedings. These objectives and constraints are discussed in the “Audit Objectives, Scope, and Methodology.” section of this report.

A PDF Copy of the Audit of the Juvenile Court Department is available here.