This Bulletin is part of OJJDP’s Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants (JAIBG) Best Practices Series. The basic premise underlying the JAIBG program, initially funded in fiscal year 1998, is that young people who violate the law need to be held accountable for their offenses if society is to improve the quality of life in the Nation’s communities. Holding a juvenile offender “accountable” in the juvenile justice system means that once the juvenile is determined to have committed law-violating behavior, by admission or adjudication, he or she is held responsible for the act through consequences or sanctions, imposed pursuant to law, that are proportionate to the offense. Consequences or sanctions that are applied swiftly, surely, and consistently, and are graduated to provide appropriate and effective responses to varying levels of offense seriousness and offender chronicity, work best in preventing, controlling, and reducing further law violations.

In an effort to help States and units of local government develop programs in the 12 purpose areas established for JAIBG funding, Bulletins in this series are designed to present the most up-to-date knowledge to juvenile justice policymakers, researchers, and practitioners about programs and approaches that hold juvenile offenders accountable for their behavior. An indepth description of the JAIBG program and a list of the 12 program purpose areas appear in the overview Bulletin for this series.

Juvenile drug courts are intensive treatment programs established within and supervised by juvenile courts to provide specialized services for eligible drug-involved youth and their families. Cases are assigned to a juvenile drug court docket based on criteria set by local officials to carry out the goals of the drug court program.

Juvenile drug courts provide (1) intensive and continuous judicial supervision over delinquency and status offense cases that involve substance-abusing juveniles and (2) coordinated and supervised delivery of an array of support services necessary to address the problems that contribute to juvenile involvement in the justice system. Service areas include substance abuse treatment, mental health, primary care, family, and education. Since 1995, more than 140 juvenile drug courts have been established in the United States, and more than 125 are currently being planned.

This Bulletin addresses JAIBG program purpose area 9—the establishment of juvenile drug court programs to provide continuing judicial supervision of juvenile offenders with substance abuse problems and to integrate the administration of other sanctions and services. The purpose of this Bulletin is twofold: (1) to share with local officials the experience and perspective of juvenile justice policymakers and practitioners who have been involved with juvenile drug court programs during the past several years and (2) to facilitate the development of constructive, well-conceived programs that improve the juvenile justice system’s ability to hold youthful offenders accountable for their behavior while enhancing public safety and strengthening existing State and local programs.