Press Release  New Reports Highlight Progress Made and Opportunities for Improvement in Massachusetts’ Juvenile Justice System

Boston, MA — A new report released today by the state Juvenile Justice Policy and Data (JJPAD) Board finds that significant progress has been made in reducing the number of youth involved in Massachusetts’ juvenile justice system, but that opportunities still exist to increase the number of youth diverted from the court process, particularly for Black and Latino youth who are still over-represented in the juvenile justice system.  

“This year’s report shows that Massachusetts continues to make significant progress in reducing the number of youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system, which was a primary goal of the 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act,” said Maria Mossaides, Director of the Office of the Child Advocate and Chair of the JJPAD Board. “This is news to be celebrated, and it’s a testament to the hard work of so many. At the same time, we must continue to focus on areas where we can improve. We know court involvement is often not the best way to address adolescent misbehavior, mental health concerns or the impact of trauma on a child, and so we must increase our efforts to divert more youth from the justice system earlier in the process. Increased use of diversion can also help address the persistent racial and ethnic disparities we see in our juvenile justice system.”

The report notes that while the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to the decline seen in FY21 data, the state has been on a path of decreasing system use since well before the pandemic began. Key findings from the JJPAD Board’s 2021 Annual Report include:

1. Massachusetts continues to use the juvenile justice system less than previous years. Between FY20 and FY21, arrests decreased 15%, complaints to court decreased 23%, arraignments decreased 37%, and first-time commitments to the Department of Youth Services decreased 40%. Since FY18, arrests have dropped by 53%, complaints by 46%, arraignments by 60% and first-time commitments by 61%.
    
2. Of the cases that enter the juvenile justice system, most (83%) are dismissed before they reach an adjudication (equivalent to the court’s determination of guilty/not guilty in adult court).
    
3. A signification portion of cases entering and moving through the juvenile justice system are for misdemeanors and lower-level offenses. More than half of cases that enter the juvenile court system, and a third that reach the adjudication stage, are for misdemeanors.
    
4. While there is evidence that increasingly more youth are being diverted away from the juvenile justice system, opportunities to keep even more youth out of the system remain. There is strong evidence that keeping youth out of the juvenile justice system, specifically before reaching the point of arraignment, is beneficial for both the youth and overall public safety, and research supports the practice. The JJPAD Board estimates that hundreds of additional cases each year could be appropriate candidates for diversion, if we gave youth the opportunity and appropriate supports to be successful.
    
5. One group that could benefit more from diversionary measures are youth of color, who remain disproportionately represented in the state’s juvenile justice system. For example, despite Black youth making up just 10% and Latino youth making up 18% of Massachusetts’ youth population (12-17 years old), 25% of arrests were for Black youth and 24% were for Latino youth. Further, compared to white youth:

• Black youth were over 3 times more likely to be arrested and 3 times more likely to be detained pretrial
• Latino youth were almost 2 times more likely to be arrested and 7 times more likely to be held overnight between court business hours

Alongside its Annual Report, the Board also released a second report highlighting progress made and continuing gaps in availability of data on the state’s juvenile justice system. This report builds on a previous report the group issued in 2019 as mandated by An Act Relative to Criminal Justice Reform. In its 2022 report, the Board highlights that significant progress has been made by juvenile justice agencies to provide more data elements every year since 2018. Still, in this report, the Board notes gaps that remain and makes recommendations to the state in order to increase the group’s ability to make data-informed policy and practice recommendations.

“One challenge our state continues to face is our inability to track youth who are involved with multiple state systems (e.g. the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system) to better identify how we can intervene earlier and more effectively in the lives of these children to prevent justice system involvement. Similarly, we struggle to produce data that can help us better understand the short- and long-term life outcomes for youth with juvenile justice system involvement,” said Melissa Threadgill, Director of Strategic Innovation at the OCA. “Massachusetts is currently unable to answer basic questions about the youth in our juvenile justice system, such as ‘How many youth have child welfare and juvenile justice system involvement?’ or ‘What percentage of cases are for youth referred to court for the first time vs. youth who have had previous court involvement?’. We also lack the ability to look at longer-term outcomes, such as ‘How does juvenile justice system involvement impact high school graduation or future employment opportunities?’ To improve outcomes, we must continue to increase the sophistication of our data systems in a way that maintains important privacy protections for youth while allowing us to answer these and other important questions.”

The Annual Report also highlight’s the Board’s work throughout 2021, including its study into both the Child Requiring Assistance (CRA) system and trauma screening practices; monitoring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Policing Act on the juvenile justice system; and advising on the launch of statewide Diversion Learning Lab pilots and the newly launched Center on Child Wellbeing and Trauma. The Board also advises on the OCA’s interactive data website, which allows members of the public and researchers to explore the state’s juvenile justice system data.

All legislative reports by the Board are available at: https://www.mass.gov/lists/jjpadcttf-legislative-reports-and-key-documents

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