U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

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
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