Chapter 120

Section 1. The department of youth services shall be a corporation for the purpose of taking, holding and investing in trust for the commonwealth, subject to section fifteen of chapter ten, any grant or devise of land or any gift or bequest made at any time for the use of any ins…

Section 10. (a) For the purpose of carrying out its duties and effectuating the decisions of the department of youth services with respect to the classification, placement for training and treatment, transfer, release under supervision and discharge of persons committed to the de…

Section 10B. A person detained by and committed to the department of youth services shall not be placed in involuntary room confinement as a punishment, harassment or consequence for noncompliance or in retaliation for any conduct.

Section 11. When funds are available for the purpose, the commissioner of youth services may (a) establish and operate places for detention and diagnosis of all persons committed to the department; (b) establish and operate additional treatment and training facilities necessary t…

Section 12. The department may direct release under supervision at any time, and may place children in its custody in their usual homes or in any situation or family that has been approved by the department; provided, however, that if the child has been committed to the departmen…

Section 13. The department may issue a warrant for the arrest of any person committed to it who has escaped from a facility or who has been released on parole and broken the conditions thereof. Such person may be arrested with or without such warrant by a police officer, sheriff,…

Section 13A. Upon written request of the department, there shall be paid out of the state treasury, from such funds as may be available therefor, to any person determined by the attorney general to be entitled to compensation for damage to his property caused by the act of any in…

Section 14. Whenever the department finds that any person committed to it is mentally ill, within the meaning of chapter one hundred and twenty-three, developmentally disabled or a sexually dangerous person, within the meaning of chapter one hundred and twenty-three A, or a poten…

Section 15. With the consent of the department, the commissioner of correction may transfer to the care of the department any boy under 18 sentenced to the Massachusetts reformatory, or any girl under 18 sentenced to the reformatory for women, for such disposition as in the opini…

Section 16. Every person committed to the department until the age of 18 as a delinquent child, if not already discharged, shall be discharged upon reaching the person's eighteenth birthday. Every person committed to the department until the age of 19 as a delinquent child, if no…

Section 17. Whenever the department is of the opinion that discharge of a person from its control at the age limit stated in section sixteen would be physically dangerous to the public, the department shall make an order directing that the person remain subject to its control bey…

Section 18. If the department applies to the court for review of an order as provided in section seventeen, the court shall notify the person whose liberty is involved, and if he or she be not sui juris, his parent or guardian (if such person can be reached and if not the court s…

Section 19. When an order of the department is confirmed as provided in section eighteen, the control of the department over the person shall continue, subject to the provisions of this chapter; provided, however, unless the person is previously discharged in accordance with sect…

Section 2. The department of youth services shall have the management, government and care of the Lyman school for boys at Westborough, the industrial school for girls at Lancaster, the industrial school for boys at Shirley, and of all other institutions, except correctional inst…

Section 21. Commitment to the care of the department of a delinquent child or youthful offender shall not operate to disqualify said child in any future examination, appointment or application for public service under the government either of the commonwealth or of any political …

Section 22. The department shall conduct continuing inquiry into the effectiveness of the treatment methods it employs in seeking the reformation of juvenile and youthful offenders. To this end the department shall obtain from the commissioner of probation all court record inform…

Section 23. The department may act as guardian for a child under 18 years of age in its charge who has neither parent living, or of whom neither parent can be located, and for whom no guardian has been appointed. In such instances, the department may act with all the power and au…

Section 23A. Annually on or before November thirtieth, the department shall pay to the state treasurer all unclaimed money held by it for the benefit of any former ward of the department whose whereabouts are then unknown to it and have been unknown for seven years subsequent to …

Section 24. The department may expend any money given for the purpose in erecting houses or other buildings on the land of the commonwealth at Lancaster, for increasing the accommodation and facilities of the industrial school, if the plans therefor are first approved by the bure…

Section 25. The provisions of this chapter relative to commitment to the care of the department shall extend to boys and girls committed by authority of the courts or magistrates of the United States.

Section 26. Whoever escapes, or attempts to escape from the department or aids or assists a child in the custody of the department to escape or attempt to escape shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than two years.

Section 3. The commissioner of youth services shall from time to time appoint a superintendent, chaplains and a physician of each of said schools and institutions, and shall, in accordance with law appoint all other officers and employees required at said schools and institutions…

Section 4. The commissioner of youth services shall establish rules, regulations, and by-laws for the government of each institution and shall see that its affairs are conducted according to law and to such rules, regulations, and by-laws; but the purpose thereof and of all educa…

Section 5. (a) When a person has been committed to the department of youth services, it shall, under rules established by it, forthwith examine and study him and investigate all pertinent circumstances of his life and behavior. (b) The department of youth services shall make peri…

Section 6. When a person has been committed to the department of youth services, it may after an objective consideration of all available information— (a) Permit him his liberty under supervision and upon such conditions as it believes conducive to law-abiding conduct; or— (b) Or…

Section 6A. As a means of correcting the socially harmful tendencies of a person committed to it, the department of youth services may— (a) Require participation by him in vocational, physical, educational, and correctional training and activities. (b) Require such modes of life …

Section 7. The superintendent of each school or other institution, with the subordinate officers, shall have general charge of and be responsible for the welfare and custody of the children lodged therein, and for carrying out the rehabilitative program prescribed by the commissi…

Section 8. Each superintendent shall before entering upon his duties give bond to the commonwealth, with sureties approved by the governor and council, in such sum as the comptroller may prescribe, conditioned that he shall faithfully perform all his duties and account for all mo…

Section 9. The superintendent of the industrial school for girls, under the direction of the commissioner of youth services, shall purchase books with the income and profits and according to the terms of the donation of Henry B. Rogers.