How does juvenile drug court work

California's first juvenile drug court began in Tulare County in Today there are forty-eight juvenile drug courts in California. Skip to main content Skip to topics menu Skip to topics menu. Mono Bar U. Main menu. Territories for mental and substance use disorders. Ellos escuchan.

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Beginning with a small number of experimental programs, the drug court concept quickly grew into a full-scale movement in the United States. Less than a decade after the first program started in , there were more than 1, drug court programs in operation across the country. The first drug courts were designed for adult defendants, but in the mids state and local jurisdictions began to develop juvenile drug courts as well.

By , approximately juvenile drug courts had opened and another were being planned. As often happens in the justice system, juvenile drug courts became popular long before evaluation researchers were able to demonstrate that they were effective.

In fact, researchers have only begun to test whether juvenile drug courts "work," in the sense that they stop or reduce substance abuse more effectively than the current approaches used for similar youth. Such evidence is hard to assemble, and it takes lengthy research studies with long-term follow-up periods to generate real proof of program effectiveness.

Until very recently, juvenile drug courts had not been around long enough for evaluators to complete studies with long-term outcomes. The number of juvenile drug court programs was small until the late s. Fortunately, adult drug courts appeared five years before juvenile drug courts and the evaluation literature on adult programs has had more time to develop.

These studies suggest the drug court concept itself may have merit. At the very least, drug courts seem to affect offender behavior enough to pay for themselves through reduced crime and drug abuse.

It is not clear, however, whether the growing evidence about adult drug courts can be applied to juvenile drug courts. Many important policy questions about juvenile drug courts have not been answered. Should juvenile programs differ substantially from adult drug courts?

Should they use different treatment models? Should courtroom routines be designed and managed differently? How can juvenile drug courts effectively motivate young offenders to reduce their substance abuse behavior? How should their procedures and strategies be adapted to incorporate the important role of family and school in the lives of adolescents? The most important unresolved issue may be whether the juvenile justice system really needs juvenile drug courts. Adult drug courts were a significant innovation for the criminal justice system.

They introduced a problem-solving approach to a system accustomed to fact finding and punishment. Rather than simply weighing the evidence in a single case and imposing a sentence, drug courts use the leverage of judicial authority to motivate offenders to change their drug-using behavior.

But this approach is not exactly revolutionary in the juvenile justice system. In fact, it is standard operating procedure in traditional juvenile courts.