JUST AS WAS the case two years ago, lawmakers sitting down now to finalize a sprawling bill intended to supercharge the region’s economy will need to debate whether the package should also embrace a major criminal justice reform.
Senators once again want to use the biennial economic development legislation as the vehicle to increase the age of juvenile jurisdiction, a change that would allow many 18-year-olds accused of lower-level crimes to be tried in Juvenile Court instead of in the adult system.
Supporters have long argued that allowing 18-year-old offenders — who are often still in high school — to remain under the purview of the Department of Youth Services will better equip them for rehabilitation, lower recidivism rates, and shield teenagers from conviction records that can significantly damage their long-term employment and housing prospects.
Now, backers are hopeful that growing acceptance of the social and economic upsides, combined with new understanding of young adult brain development, means policymakers are on the verge of marshaling a critical mass of support for the policy.
Nichelle Sadler, executive director of the Training Center for Excellence at UTEC, an organization that works with young adults in the Merrimack Valley previously involved in the criminal justice system, said increasing the age of juvenile jurisdiction is “an issue that people understand more clearly” than they did even just a few years ago.
“There is a recognition that there’s something different about this population, and that in order for us to achieve what we all want, which is public safety, we have to look at alternatives that are maybe less traditional and less punitive,” Sadler said.
The Senate quietly tucked the policy rider into a larger economic development bill, adopting it as an amendment from Sen. Brendan Crighton with only an unrecorded voice vote and no commentary or debate. By doing so, senators kept the proposal on the table heading into a months-long stretch in which legislative negotiators will need to finalize the bill, buying time for backers to convince leaders in the House — which did not embrace any juvenile jurisdiction changes in its version of the bill — that the time for reform is now.
Standalone legislation that Crighton and other lawmakers filed would have gradually increased the age of criminal majority to 21, eventually allowing many 19- and 20-year-olds to face proceedings in juvenile courts. But the measure now in play as part of the economic development bill is narrower, applying only to 18-year-olds. Both the bills and Senate economic development rider would still allow 18-year-olds to face adult charges for some of the most violent offenses, including murder.
Crighton said the Department of Youth Services, the state’s juvenile justice agency, provides more education, mental health treatment, and job training resources than the adult criminal justice system.
“All those important programs will have a much better impact on them as they come back out,” the Lynn Democrat told CommonWealth Beacon.
The lack of fanfare around the vote was a sharp contrast to what happened two years ago, when the Senate pursued a similar change in that term’s economic development bill. That time around, five different senators spoke in support of the raise-the-age amendment, and one spoke against it before the chamber approved it 31-9. (Months before the vote, Senate President Karen Spilka hosted high-profile supporters, including then-Boston Celtics player Jaylen Brown, for a raise-the-age advocacy event at the State House.)
Crighton said the brief voice vote this time was sufficient because “we had already passed this multiple times in the Senate, and our position’s clear.”
The proposal’s outlook, however, is still murky. After nixing the rider two years ago, top House Democrats are remaining mum about it, offering no real indication if they’re now on board. Through a spokesperson, House Speaker Ron Mariano declined to comment, citing the active conference committee negotiations.
Rep. Manny Cruz, a Salem Democrat who filed raise-the-age legislation in the House alongside Rep. James O’Day, one of the four division leaders in Mariano’s team, said he’s cautiously optimistic about the prospects, even if convincing skeptics — including many police leaders — that steering more offenders through the juvenile system is better for the state remains an “uphill fight.”
“There are certainly a lot more engaged House members beyond myself and Leader O’Day who would like to see this proposal move forward,” Cruz said in an interview.
If the idea doesn’t move forward this time, Cruz added, perhaps lawmakers can weave it into a bigger criminal-justice reform package in the 2027-2028 term.
Massachusetts last increased the age of criminal majority in 2013, allowing many 17-year-olds to remain part of the juvenile justice system instead of facing charges in adult court. Since then, arrests of people younger than 18 have fallen by more than half, and Juvenile Court caseloads have declined significantly, according to data compiled by Citizens for Juvenile Justice. Advocates think that suggests the system has enough capacity to account for the added demands of steering many 18-year-olds through Juvenile Court.
Supporters think taking the next step is essential. They argue that recidivism rates are significantly lower for those who go through the Department of Youth Services than the adult court system, that science shows that adolescents are likely to age out of the decision-making patterns that lead to criminal behavior, and that adult criminal records carry lifelong consequences.
That last point is why Reese Thompson, a 20-year-old youth advocate with the group More than Words, thinks it makes sense to include the criminal justice reform in a bill otherwise focused on job growth and economic well-being.
“It’s hard for a youth who’s coming out of the system to access a job when they’re being saddled with literally hundreds of barriers just from the jump,” Thompson, who coauthored an opinion piece on the topic earlier this year for CommonWealth Beacon, said in an interview. “When it comes to that, you’re not able to provide for yourself. How are you able to contribute to your community when you don’t even know where food is coming from and if you’ll be able to maintain a job?”
Many law enforcement leaders have opposed the idea of further raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction. Last year, the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association wrote to a legislative panel arguing against the broader legislation.
“At 18, individuals can vote, serve in the military, sign contracts, and even sit on a jury to determine someone else’s guilt, yet under this proposal, they would not be fully responsible for their own criminal actions,” the association wrote, according to the Boston Herald.
It’s also generated a mixed reaction within the state’s judiciary.
In 2019, while a state task force weighed whether to recommend expanding the juvenile justice system to include 18- to 20-year-olds, then-Juvenile Court Chief Justice Amy Nechtem aired skepticism about the idea. Paula Carey, the head of the Trial Court at the time, also cautioned the system could “face some challenges” as a result of the envisioned change.
Four years later, Carey’s successor, Jeffrey Locke, detailed a range of knock-on effects that could stem from upping the age of juvenile jurisdiction. In a 2023 letter to lawmakers, Locke said raising the age of criminal majority to 19 years old — which the Senate now backs — would increase the caseload for Juvenile Court judges by about a third while straining juvenile clinics and probation officers.
He also expressed “grave concerns” about the prospect of overcrowding in detention facilities designed for juveniles, which are “already limited and cramped, especially in our older courthouses.”
“Raising the age of criminal majority to just 19 would inevitably increase the number of individuals in our courthouse lockup facilities which were originally designed for a limited population of juveniles in custody,” Locke wrote. “Expanding the universe of individuals who must be placed in a juvenile cell will overcrowd those facilities and potentially create dangerous conditions for younger individuals in custody by exposing them to older emerging adults.”
The Trial Court’s current chief justice, Heidi Brieger, has not examined or weighed in on the issue, according to a spokesperson.
However, supporters feel at least partially buoyed by one court action: the 2024 Supreme Judicial Court decision that declared it unconstitutional to sentence someone to life without parole if they were younger than 21 at the time of the offense.
Writing for the 4-3 majority in the Commonwealth v. Sheldon Mattis decision, Chief Justice Kimberly Budd cited brain development science and said the court “must recognize the ‘unique characteristics’ of emerging adults.”
The decision applies to sentencing, while the campaign to raise the age instead focuses on decisions made about where to prosecute young offenders. But campaign supporters think their cause is helped by the court’s embrace of the idea that 18- to 20-year-olds are more prone to risk-taking and peer pressure with less impulse control.
“Any level or degree of skepticism toward adolescent brain development and the fact that this population of young people is different than older adults — you’ve seen that retreat since the Mattisdecision,” said Leon Smith, executive director of the Citizens for Juvenile Justice group.
Now, Smith said, it’s time to continue that momentum. “We need to go further,” he said, “we need to focus on youth development, we need to take a different approach.”
