New Justice Lab Issue Brief on Emerging Adult Justice in Massachusetts

With drugs having become more potent, more deadly, and easier to access, the current drug crisis has become dire for all ages. A new issue brief, Combating the Crisis: Using justice reform to address drug epidemic among emerging adults, authored by Senior Research Associate Selen Siringil Perker and the Director of the Emerging Adult Project, Lael Chester, explains the particularly tragic effects of the crisis on emerging adults:

    • Fatal drug overdoses under age 25 increased almost 5-fold in Massachusetts between 1999 and 2015.
    • Substance-related offenses are the leading cause of arrests for emerging adults, constituting over a quarter of all arrests of 18 and 19-year-olds in Massachusetts in 2014.
    • 2/3 of adults in treatment for opioid addiction started using opioids before age 25.
    • Opioids accounted for more than a quarter of all fatalities in the 18 – 24 age group in Massachusetts.
    • There has been no thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of the substance use disorder treatment for emerging adults incarcerated in Massachusetts; moreover, treatment that has been provided to approximately 25% of inmates of all ages in Massachusetts has failed to show any significant reduction in the risk of fatal overdose.
    • Emerging adults released from incarceration in Massachusetts are approximately 10 times more likely to die from opioids than people released from incarceration ages 45 and older. This is on top of the already high risk of opioid-related death for those formerly incarcerated persons, which is 120 times higher than the rest of the adult population.
Combating the Crisis graph

Part of the criminal justice reform bills that are now under consideration by the Massachusetts legislature, particularly the proposal to include most 18-year-olds in the juvenile justice system, have the potential to more effectively address soaring substance use disorders among system-involved youth by recognizing the developmental differences of emerging adults and potentially expanding rehabilitative services to more emerging adults.

Download the issue brief here.

Download the press release here.

For more information on emerging adults as a distinct group in the justice system, see our first issue brief in this series, Emerging Adults: A Distinct Population That Calls for an Age-Appropriate Approach by the Justice System.