The Impressive Top-to-Bottom Makeover of the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice System (NationSwell.com)
In Massachusetts, which created the nation’s first juvenile correctional system around 1846 , the punitive model common to most states persisted for a century and a half. In the late 1990s, however, a group of fed-up employees teamed up to reform youth courts, juvenile detention facilities and probation offices from within. While much of the country continues to arrest more than 1.02 million children every year, Massachusetts reduced the number in custody down to a daily average of about 190...