JJPAD Board Releases 2024 Annual Report

This year’s annual report from the state's Juvenile Justice Policy & Data Board (of which CLM is a member) highlighted an uptick in the use of arrests and pretrial detention for youth in FY24 compared to FY23. This increase in the use of physical custody occurred despite the fact that the use of the rest of juvenile justice system plateaued since last year.

Key Findings

1. The increase in entries to the juvenile justice system has slowed significantly in the last year. This suggests the system has stabilized after the increases in the immediate years after the height of the pandemic.
2. Despite the plateau in overall system use, the use of physical custody is increasing. There was an increase in the use of physical custody, such as placing a youth under arrest (7% increase) or holding them in pretrial detention (17% increase).
3. This increase in the use of physical custody is primarily driven by an increase in arrests and detention admissions for lower-level offenses. There was a 13% increase in arrests for misdemeanor offenses and 21% increase in admissions for pretrial detention.
4. The majority of youth held in a locked detention facility are not found to be dangerous and not ultimately committed to DYS. In FY24, 86% of detention admissions were a result of something other than a determination that the youth alleged of committing an offense was "dangerous" as a result of a 58A hearing.
5. Racial disparities are worsening across many process points. Black youth were 5.43 times more likely to be arrested and Latino youth were 3.26 times more likely to be arrested compared to White youth in Massachusetts.
6. There are substantial increases in the use of physical custody for girls. Between FY23 and FY24, arrests of girls increased by 19%, overnight arrests by 22%, detention admissions by 49%, and first-time commitments to DYS by 10%.
7. Key state-level reforms have made a positive impact on the number of young people coming into the system, but room for improvement, particularly in the use of physical custody, remains.

JJPAD's Recommendations

1. The state should divert more youth pre-arraignment by expanding opportunities for state diversion. The state should support and expand both the Massachusetts Youth Diversion Program and the list of offenses eligible for judicial diversion.
2. The state should improve how pretrial conditions of release are set and re-visited throughout the pretrial process and create a well-resourced continuum of interventions across the state to support youth in the community rather than pretrial detention.
3. Police departments should re-examine which department policies and practices may be contributing to racial and ethnic disparities in arrests through data-informed measures. This could include reviewing the Department's internal data to see if the disparities in arrests highlighted in this report are replicated at the department and/or individual officer level and requiring officers to document why they decided to arrest a youth instead of seeking a summons.
4. The state should fully implement the juvenile provisions in the 2020 Policing Bill. This includes the requirement that all law enforcement agencies be certified by the POST Commission and improvement of DESE data collection in large school districts of school-based arrests, citations, and court referrals.