Study results suggest that detention health care policies for adolescents have significant gaps, particularly for mental health care. Policies for admission health screening existed in 99 percent of facilities and 90 percent included mental health screening. Most sites had policies about psycho-pharmacotherapy and 92 percent had crisis services. Continuation of existing psychotropic medication treatment was provided at 96 percent of facilities. Seventy-three percent of facilities used physicians to manage medications in-house. In 61 percent of the centers, these physicians were psychiatrists. Provisions for discharge psychotropic medication existed at 84 percent of sites; however, there was wide variation in dispensing policies. Many adolescents admitted to detention facilities have serious mental and physical health problems. Little is known about policies for the delivery of mental and physical health care in these settings. Additional research is needed in the area concerning health care needs of youth and the services actually received and identifying the barriers to providing better detention facility health care. The objective of this study was to describe current health care policies in United States detention facilities through telephone interviews with 83 juvenile detention facility administrators from across the United States. Tables, references