The law requires States to remove all status offenders from juvenile detention and correctional facilities. To receive JJDP Act formula grant funds, States are required to comply with the law's mandates and monitor and report on their progress toward achieving the mandates. A majority of States comply with the DSO mandate and are committed to its purposes; an analysis of December 1992 reports indicated that five States and three territories had achieved full compliance, while 29 States were in full compliance with minimal exceptions. Although 1990 amendments to the JJDP Act permit judges to confine status offenders in secure detention facilities for limited time periods if they have violated a valid court order, the majority of States do not use this exception in any form. A major issue affecting States' compliance with the DSO mandate concerns the handling of chronic status offenders such as runaways or juveniles with emotional and behavioral problems. This problem, like issues concerning the valid court order provision, raise the possibility that these youth may be handled in ways that effectively undermine State DSO efforts. The pressures for more punitive approaches to resolving juvenile violence are among the challenges to the future of the DSO provision. The survival of a State's DSO policy will probably depend largely on how firmly installed it has become in laws, policies, and practices. Fiscal pressures will also reinforce the development of noninstitutional approaches to status offenders. Without the JJDP ACT, the country risks a wholesale return to policies that place youth who are not criminal offenders in jeopardy. Reference notes