Do juvenile drug courts reduce recidivism?: Outcomes of drug court and an adolescent substance abuse program

Juvenile drug courts have emerged as “innovative” responses to juvenile drug offenders, but comparatively little is known about their operations. This paper presents results of a retrospective comparison of drug court participants to an adolescent substance abuse program (ASAP) to examine which participants fared better in terms of future recidivism. Using data collected from official case files, we compared recidivism levels for all juveniles (n = 150) terminated from drug court between 1996 and 1999 with those of a random sample of juveniles (n = 158) terminated from ASAP during 1994 and 1995. Biand multivariate analyses were conducted to identify whether significant differences existed between the groups concerning re-arrest (recidivism) over a 24-month post-release observation period. Study results highlighted by logistic regression analyses suggesting that juveniles in drug court were no more likely to recidivate than were juveniles in ASAP is a positive finding for the drug court program and is an indication that the program is working, especially given the serious nature of this juvenile offender population.