Juvenile Courts Vary Greatly in How They Handle Drug and Alcohol Cases

• NCJ Number: 133986
• Journal: Narc Officer Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: (April 1990) Pages: 65,67,71
• Author(s): T S Donahue
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 3 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The National Center for Juvenile Justice analyzed nearly 393,000 court records in the National Juvenile Court Data Archive describing delinquency cases processed in 1984 in 696 courts in 15 States to determine how juvenile courts handle drug and alcohol cases.

Abstract

Seven percent of the delinquency cases examined involved a drug offense, and 7 percent involved an alcohol offense. For each 1,000 youth ages 10 through 17 living in their jurisdictions, the courts received three drug and three alcohol cases. Drug and alcohol case rates varied greatly by age, sex, and race. In all age groups, substantially more males than females were sent to juvenile court for alcohol and drug offenses. Juvenile courts did not handle alcohol and drug cases formally as often as they did other delinquency cases. Courts tended to deal more formally with those juveniles who had appeared in juvenile court previously. 1 figure