Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to isolate the variables significantly related to the termination and retention of adolescent participants in the Orange County Juvenile Drug Court Program. Method. The sample was drawn from archival data and included 260 juvenile court offenders between the ages of 12 and 18 years of age who voluntarily participated in an Orange County Juvenile Drug Court program from September 1999 to September 2006. The program's goal is to reduce recidivism, substance use, and enhance the likelihood of participants' rehabilitation. Using quantitative methods, data collected from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI), the Health Care Agency Juvenile Drug Court Evaluation Form, and the Orange County Juvenile Drug Court Initial Eligibility and Referral form were analyzed using correlational and multivariate designs to determine if relationships existed between program outcomes (graduation and termination), MACI personality traits, MACI clinical syndromes, MACI expressed concerns, family participation, and primary language of participants and their parents. Findings. Results indicated that participants with Spanish-speaking parents were 2.34 times greater to terminate from the JDC program than participants with English-speaking parents (CI: [1.23, 4.32], p<.01). An unadjusted regression analysis found no significant relationship between participants' graduation or dropout rates and their MACI scores. Results also indicated that program outcomes could not be predicted using the level of participant's family involvement in the juvenile drug court program, or to the participant's primary language.