The proliferation of drugs courts during the 1990's was not the result of a revolutionary change in American social values, nor did it involve a sudden shift in drug policy. It resulted from a century-long evolutionary process that moved the medical model of treatment for drug abuse, which had been the exclusive domain of social services, into the criminal justice model of mandatory and coercive case management. Juvenile drug courts apparently evolved directly from the adult drug court model, rather than as an adaptation of traditional juvenile case processing. The need for specialized case processing for drug-abusing juveniles followed many of the same precursors of adult drug courts, i.e., rising caseloads of drug offenders and perceptions of the effectiveness of drug treatment in reducing the demand for drugs. The rapid proliferation of both juvenile and adult drug courts, however, was largely due to Federal funding and training that provided uniformity in drug court operations across jurisdictions. Most drug courts pursue a mission that attempts to blend a concern about reducing recidivism and providing effective treatment. How these goals are balanced is a function of each drug court's history. 35 references