The Early Bird Gets the Worm: A Proposal to Develop Early Intervention Shelters Throughout Massachusetts

Abstract

This Note argues that Massachusetts should create early intervention shelters to aid potential status offenders and other troubled teenagers. The current juvenile justice system deserves critique because it is too reactive and focused on problem-free outcomes such as staying arrestfree, rather than developmental outcomes such as emotional maturity. This Note explores the short-term and long-term benefits of early intervention shelters and suggests that the shelters would be a helpful solution to the problem. Massachusetts should follow the model of other states and enact legislation to create and maintain early intervention shelters on a statewide scale. Such legislation would be attentive to concerns of race, gender, class, and budget.