THE SAMPLE POPULATION WAS A GROUP OF BOYS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 12 AND 18 WHO HAD BEEN ADJUDICATED DELINQUENT AND COMMITTED TO THE MISSOURI STATE TRAINING SCHOOL FOR BOYS. THE STRICT DEFINITION OF DRUG ABUSE GIVEN IN THE DRAFT VERSION OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION TASK FORCE ON NOMENCLATURE AND STATISTICS PUBLICATION, DSM-ILL, WAS EMPLOYED. SUBJECTS WERE INTERVIEWED BY A PSYCHIATRIST AND EACH SUBJECT'S TRAINING SCHOOL FILES WERE REVIEWED. THE FINAL SAMPLE CONSISTED OF 109 BOYS. EACH SUBJECT WAS CATEGORIZED AS AN OFFENDER AGAINST PROPERTY OR AS AN OFFENDER AGAINST PERSONS. PERSON OFFENDERS WERE SIGNIFICANTLY OLDER, CAME FROM LARGER COMMUNITIES, ABUSED A GREATER NUMBER OF DRUGS, HAD HIGHER ASOCIAL INDEX SCORES, AND HAD LOWER FULL-SCALE IQ SCORES THAN PROPERTY-ONLY OFFENDERS. THE IQ SCORE AND THE NUMBER OF DRUGS ABUSED WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT VARIABLES IN PREDICTING WHETHER A SUBJECT BELONGED TO THE PERSON OFFENDER CATEGORY OR PROPERTY-ONLY OFFENDER GROUP. FURTHER STUDY SHOULD EXPLORE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPECIFIC DRUG ABUSE AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOR, TO EXAMINE THE DRUG ABUSE HISTORY OF A LARGER GROUP OF BLACK PROPERTY-ONLY OFFENDERS, TO COMPARE DRUG ABUSE BEHAVIOR OF DELINQUENTS AND NONDELINQUENTS, AND TO DETERMINE LATER DELINQUENCY PATTERNS OF USERS AND ABUSERS FOLLOWED LONGITUDINALLY. FOOTNOTES AND TABULAR DATA ARE INCLUDED IN THE ARTICLE. (LWM)