Juvenile courts sometimes hold youth in secure detention facilities during court processing. Depending on the State's detention laws, the court may decide detention is necessary to protect the community from a juvenile's behavior, to ensure a juvenile's appearance at subsequent court hearings, or to secure the juvenile's own safety. Detention may also be ordered for the purpose of evaluating the juvenile.

Juveniles were held in detention facilities at some point between referral to court intake and case disposition in 19% of all delinquency cases disposed in 1997 (table 5). Property offense cases were least likely to involve detention. Detention was involved in 15% of property offense cases and in 22% of drug, person, and public order offense cases.

The proportion of delinquency cases involving detention changed little between 1988 and 1997. During this 10-year time period, the use of detention ranged between 18% and 23%, peaking in 1990. The same general pattern was seen in each of the four major offense categories. With the exception of drug law violation cases, use of detention fluctuated within a 5- to 6-percentage point range, peaking in 1990. The use of detention for drug law violation cases also peaked in 1990 but showed a wider variation: from 38% in 1990 to 22% in 1997, a 16-point change.

The number of delinquency cases in which juveniles were detained increased 35% between 1988 and 1997, rising from 241,700 to 326,800 (table 6). Increases occurred in all offense categories, with person offense cases showing the greatest increase. Between 1988 and 1997, the number of person offense cases in which youth were detained increased 82%; the use of detention increased 51% in drug and public order offense cases and 6% in property offense cases. During the more recent 5-year period from 1993 to 1997, however, the number of property cases in which juveniles were detained declined 11%.

Although detention was least likely in property offense cases in 1997, property offenses accounted for 38% of all delinquency cases involving detention, because they represented the largest share of juvenile court caseloads (table 7). Person offense cases accounted for 27% of cases involving detention, public order offense cases accounted for 23%, and drug law violation cases accounted for 12%.

Between 1988 and 1997, the offense characteristics of delinquency cases involving detention changed somewhat, with person offenses accounting for larger proportions of detentions (27% in 1997 versus 20% in 1988) and property offenses representing a smaller share in 1997 than in 1988 (38% versus 49%).