Abstract
Drug and alcohol use/abuse is a chronic societal problem that requires a considerable amount of community resources to prevent, identify, and treat. Juvenile drug courts (JDCs) have emerged in response to the high prevalence of adolescent's substance abuse in today's juvenile justice system. The purpose of this study was to clarify what particular JDC factors predicted drug court graduation in a sample of 265 Orange County Juvenile Drug Court participants. A small subset of cases (n=39) was also analyzed to determine the relationships between demographic, court monitoring, treatment, court procedures, and program graduation variables. The present study used a cross-sectional case-control design, in which a purposive sample was collected using archival data. Results from the present study indicated that the variables that predicted success included length of substance abuse histories, number of sustained petitions prior to program entrance, living in two-parent households, and being European American/White. Adolescents with lengthier drug abuse histories and higher number of sustained petitions may exhibit greater levels of motivation to change and graduate from the program than their low risk counterparts. Latinos in the JDC may experience low treatment adherence, which may be impacted by programmatic differences among ethnic groups, acculturation difficulties, and therapist-client ethnic match. Although family composition/functioning are not the sole predictors of antisocial behaviors in adolescents, it is a medium in which positive changes can occur. Limitations of this study and recommendations for future research are discussed.