The national estimates of juvenile court activity are based on an analysis of 596,114 automated case records from more than 1,000 courts and summary statistics from nearly 400 additional courts. These courts had jurisdiction over nearly 60 percent of the nation's juvenile population in 1989. That year the juvenile courts disposed an estimated 1,189,200 delinquency cases, a 3 percent increase over the 1988 caseload and a 7 percent increase over the 1985 caseload. Males were involved in 81 percent of these cases. Fifty-eight percent of the cases involved property offenses, 17 percent involved personal offenses, and 7 percent involved drug law offenses. Half of all delinquency cases were handled informally, and more than half of these were dismissed. An estimated 16,000 cases were waived to criminal court. The juvenile courts also formally disposed an estimated 76,700 status offense cases, a 6 percent decline from the 1988 level. Figures; tables; and appended methodological information, glossary, and information by county.