Massachusetts Department of Youth Services

The Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) is a state agency of Massachusetts. Its Administrative Office is headquartered in 600 Washington Street Boston. The agency operates the state's juvenile justice services.

The DYS regions are the Central, Metro, Northeastern, Southeastern, and Western regions.

Massachusetts created the nation's first publicly funded juvenile correctional system in 1848 with the opening of the Massachusetts State Reform School for Boys at Westborough, later known as Lyman School for Boys. In 1969 Governor Francis Sargent established the Department of Youth Services as a separate agency under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Under the leadership of the new department's first commissioner, Jerome G. Miller, Massachusetts initiated a bold deinstitutionalization effort with the closure of Lyman School for Boys and the Massachusetts Industrial School for Boys at Shirley. The reforms initiated over forty years ago have proven to be sustainable and remain foundational to the state's juvenile justice system.

From circa 1995, where there were 165 female inmates, to 2005, where there were 453 female inmates, there was a 168% increase in the number of girls committed to DYS.

DYS operates more than 80 total residential and community programs across Massachusetts, including:

The Department has a dual mandate of rehabilitation and public safety. In keeping with these two objectives, DYS has a system of classifying committed youth according to their offense patterns and other pertinent history. This classification process informs a service delivery plan that places youths in appropriate levels of care according to our Continuum of Care. The Continuum of Care includes:

The Client Services unit oversees the delivery of a host of clinical and support services. Using an integrated approach, programs address the risk to re-offend by providing a variety of services, including the following:

The Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) provides clinical and rehabilitative services to its detained clients and committed youth based on the Comprehensive Strategy outlined by the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Prevention.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): This system of psychotherapy was adopted to fit the needs of the juvenile justice population by teaching youth skills from DBT skill modules (e.g., skills in emotion regulation and/or interpersonal effectiveness modules) that are basic fundamental skills underlying positive pro-social development. DBT is used as a behavior management tool in DYS to increase skill development in youth, improve relationships between youth and staff and create a positive pro-social learning environment. While DBT is not the only clinical treatment offered in DYS, it does serve as the structure for therapeutic work and for the behavior management system across all DYS programs in the Commonwealth.

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