Additional Reading

Bill Fact Sheet

An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Young Adults – filed by Representative Jim O’Day, Representative Manny Cruz, and Senator Crighton and 40 legislative co-sponsors

Pathways to Desistance

A major, long-term longitudinal study of over 1,300 serious young offenders, identified factors that led some young people to persist in their offending and those that led to their desistance from crime.  The study found that nearly all young people – including those with serious offenses – mature psychologically, socially, and cognitively—and age out of crime.   It went further to reveal that the severity or frequency of offending did not predict future offending, however maturation and the pace young people met developmental milestones was more predictive of future offending.

Improving Public Safety through Positive Youth Development

For youth involved in more serious or persistent risky activity, research demonstrates that successful crime prevention and rehabilitation programs

  • Are developmentally appropriate;

  • Promote “positive youth development”

  • Engage youth in effective, age-appropriate treatment;

  • Avoid the use of institutional placements or incarceration unless necessary for public safety; and

  • Avoid exposing youth to the adult criminal justice system

Final Report of the Task Force on Emerging Adults in the Criminal Justice System

The Task Force was created to evaluate the impact of raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to defendants younger than 21 years of age and to make recommendations on programming for young adults, aged 18 to 24.

Raise the Age: Implications of Federal JJDPA and PREA Requirements

Columbia University’s Justice Lab released a fact sheet explaining that laws that explicitly include youth over age 18 in the juvenile justice system would not violate federal laws: “The JJPDA does not bar the housing of youth processed in the juvenile (delinquency) system over age 18 with those under age 18 […] Most states [including Massachusetts] already mingle youth under and over age 18 in their juvenile systems. […]PREA’s sight, sound, and physical separation requirement applies only to adult facilities. Age segregation is not a federal requirement for youth in juvenile facilities.”

When can you buy a gun, vote or be sentenced to death?

Using science to revise legal age limits to rights and responsibilities by accounting for young people’s transition into adulthood, and how it would impact three age-related laws: the age at which someone an vote, be subject to adult sentencing, and purchase firearms.

Effects of Transfer of Youth from the Juvenile to Adult Justice System

Adolescents are substantially less likely to commit future crimes when processed in the juvenile system than they are when processed in the adult system. The”transfer of youth to the adult criminal justice system typically results in greater subsequent crime, including violent crime, among transferred youth”

Comparison of MA’s juvenile and adult justice systems

Columbia University’s Justice Lab differentiates between the legal processes of the juvenile and adult legal systems.

Raising the Age: Shifting to a Safer and More Effective Juvenile Justice System

Justice Policy Institute’s evaluation of the impact of differnt states’ legislation raising the age of criminal legal system jurisdiction to age 18. The report highlight’s Massachusetts’, Connecticut’s, and Illinois’ reduction in juvenile crime in the wake of Raise the Age to 18 and the fiscal implications.

Collateral Consequences of (an Adult) Conviction in Massachusetts

Testimony by the Sentencing Project arguing that raising the age for older teens will prevent the lifelong burdens of an adult conviction: 1,693 collateral consequences of conviction in Massachusetts, 752 of which are created under Massachusetts laws and the remainder federal.

Implementation of Raising the Age in Vermont

In July 2020, Vermont will shift 18-year-olds into the juvenile justice system, followed by 19-year-olds in July 2023. Columbia Justice Lab prepared a full-length report to the Vermont State legislature presenting the impact of the legislation on court processes, physical custody, victim compensation, among other issues.

Viewing Justice Reinvestment Through a Developmental Lens

MassInc’s report proposing recommendations to reduce recidivism among justice-involved 18-24 year olds through evidence-based policy and practice. The report highlights the sharp drop in juvenile offending in Massachusetts—driven in part by the adoption of an intervention model informed by the latest developmental science as a basis for these recommendations.