Suffolk County youths three times more likely to be held after arraignment - The Boston Globe (2024)

In Suffolk County, which spans Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop, 35 percent of young people who were arraigned between July 2022 and June 2023 were then held in Department of Youth Services detention programs, either because they could not make bail or because prosecutors moved to hold them without bail, according to data from the Massachusetts Trial Court. Statewide, 14 percent of youths were held after arraignment. Without counting Suffolk, the number dropped to 12 percent, data for the same time period show.

Just over half of the youths held after arraignment in Suffolk were Black, and 5 percent were white, the data said, though census estimates say Black people make up about a quarter of the county’s population. Black youths were held about 35 percent of the time there, while whites were held 27 percent of the time, according to the data for that 12-month period. The racial disparity is more stark statewide, with 19 percent of Black youths and 8 percent of white youths held.

The amount of time young people are detained can vary widely, from a day or two until a cash bail amount is submitted, to multiple months if the courts deem them dangerous. The median time statewide from July 2022 through June 2023 was 35 days, which rose from 32 the previous year and 31 the year before that, according to a state report. Statewide, around one in four youths who are held after arraignment have a cash bail set but can’t afford it, while the rest are held without bail.

Some advocates question this approach to targeting youth crime.

“The idea that a young person goes in and gets scared straight — the research just doesn’t back it up,” said Leon Smith, executive director of youth legal advocacy nonprofit Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “We know when kids touch the formal system, especially through detention, young people actually tend to reoffend.”

The higher rate of Black youths entering the “quicksand” of the juvenile justice system, he said, exacerbates existing issues in a community that already has to deal with higher rates of violence, disinvestment, and trauma.

Studies show youth pretrial detention can lead to higher rates of recidivism. One published in 2020 in the journal Crime & Delinquency found it was associated with increases particularly around felony recidivism within a year. The study found there’s evidence that young people who are held in detention programs are exposed to more trauma and bad influences, and come out with a new stigma that can limit opportunities.

“It’s more important to be smart on crime than tough on crime,” said retired judge Jay Blitzman, formerly the first justice of the juvenile court in Middlesex County. “We’ve really got to be thoughtful about the unintended consequences of what we’re doing.”

Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office defended the way it handles youths, saying it seeks to strike a balance between efforts to divert them away from the justice system and public safety needs in a big city. The office seeks to hold young people only for serious crimes, said Migdalia Iris Nalls, chief of the DA’s juvenile unit.

“It is a decision that’s not made lightly,” she said.

Nalls said that since the pandemic, her unit has seen “an influx” of serious offenses, including firearm cases.

Out of 52 juveniles being held as of mid-March, 21 were for firearm-related offenses, Nalls said. Three were bail revocations because of multiple offenses, and the rest involved some sort of assault, she said.

“We want to get these numbers down, but we also want to be careful about public safety — so we’re making very thoughtful decisions,” Nalls said.

When the DA’s office moves to bring charges against a young person, she said, prosecutors attempt to talk to their parents, community members, and victims, and also check what community support systems or therapy options are available.

Nalls said that she’s worked with youths for 13 years, and that both the law and the philosophies of the people who practice it have moved more toward keeping young people out of custody.

“People are trying to get it right, and that includes the DA’s office,” she said.

In an annual report released in January, the state’s Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board wrote that it’s “concerned” that the number of young people arrested and charged, which had been dropping in the years before the pandemic, has increased two years in a row, and that racial disparities have increased among those arrested.

The report noted that comes after the state passed the sweeping 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act, which deemed that a minor could not be prosecuted for a first misdemeanor and set 12 as the youngest age at which a child could be charged, up from 7. While the number of youths entering the juvenile justice system has declined since then, the report said that if the recent upward trend continues, the number of young people detained before trial will soon surpass the levels they hit before the reform bill.

Dulcineia Goncalves, deputy chief counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Youth Advocacy Division, said prosecutors and the courts need to focus more on diversionary programs that keep young people who get arrested out of detention by requiring such things as undergoing therapy or attending school.

“To take away their family, their education, whatever supports they have — just one day does damage,” she said.

If young people are just punished, Goncalves said, “there’s less of a chance that they’re going to develop into healthy adults.”

Emmett Folgert, a longtime youth worker in Dorchester, said the DA’s office is generally doing a good job in its handling of juvenile cases. He said there are uses for detention, especially when a cycle of retaliatory violence is flaring up.

Post-arraignment diversionary programs overseen by probation can provide the structure and support to keep youths on track, he said.

Nalls said Suffolk does both informal diversion, which comes before arraignment and is for low-level offenses, and formal diversion, which includes entering into court-mandated programs. She said more than 400 youth cases were not arraigned because of diversion efforts last year that instead directed young people toward community organizations that included academic help, mentoring, recreational activities, and job opportunities.

Smith, of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, said the DA’s office “is doing really great stuff” when it does use its diversionary programs — it just needs to do so more often.

“That’s going to pay off in the long run,” he said. “We can’t punish our way out of a mental health crisis. And having a kid working on their issues isn’t a way out of accountability — it is accountability.”

Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.