2023 Massachusetts General Laws › Part I - Administration of the Government › Title XVII - Public Welfare › Chapter 120 - Department of Youth Services and Massachusetts Training Schools › Section 10 - Use of Public or Private Facilities, Institutions and Agencies; Control; Acceptance and Control of Delinquent Children; Inspection; Effect of Placement of Person in or Release From Institution or Control by Department

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 department the commissioner of youth services is authorized to make use of law enforcement, detention, supervisory, medical, educational, correctional, segregative, and other facilities, institutions and agencies, whether public or private, within the commonwealth wherever feasible, otherwise outside the commonwealth; provided however, that the department shall not transfer custody of any person who was committed to the department by a juvenile court or district court juvenile session and who is under eighteen to a penal institution. The commissioner of youth services may enter into agreements with the appropriate private or public officials for separate care and special treatment in existing institutions of persons committed to the department. In cases where a person has been adjudicated a delinquent for a violation of section one of chapter two hundred and sixty-five, the commissioner of youth services may, with the concurrence of the commissioner of correction, transfer the custody of said child to the department of correction, provided that such person has reached his eighteenth birthday.
At least twice annually, the commissioner of youth services with the assistance of the executive secretary to the advisory committee shall be responsible for convening and programming a meeting of a youth services coordinating council composed of the commissioners of public health, mental health, education, transitional assistance, corrections, and probation, and the commissioner of administration and finance or their designees. The youth services coordinating council shall meet for the purposes of providing for the coordination and mutual assistance in the carrying out and evaluation of all the programs relating to youth services in the commonwealth. Said council shall jointly prescribe and from time to time amend rules and recommendations of their various departments for the aforementioned purposes.
(b) Nothing herein shall be construed as giving the department of youth services control over existing facilities, institutions or agencies other than those listed in section two, or as requiring such facilities, institutions or agencies to service said department inconsistently with their functions, or with the authority of their officers, or with the laws and regulations governing their activities, or as giving said department power to make use of any private institution or agency without its consent, or to pay a private institution or agency for services which a public institution or agency is willing and able to perform.
(c) Public institutions and agencies are hereby required to accept and care for delinquent children or convicted persons sent to them by the department in the same manner as they would be required to do had such persons been committed thereto by a juvenile court, district court, superior court or probate court.
(d) The department is hereby given the right and shall be required periodically to inspect all public and all private institutions and agencies whose facilities it is using. Every institution and agency, whether public or private, is required to afford the department reasonable opportunity to examine or consult with persons committed to the department who are for the time being in the custody of the institution or agency.
(e) Placement of a person by the department in any institution or agency not operated by the department or the release of such person from such an institution or agency shall not terminate the control of the department over such person. No person placed in such institution or under such an agency may be released by the institution or agency without the approval of the department.