, rape and homicide, increases by 93% with juvenile courts handling an estimated 336,100 person offense cases. Person offenses also accounted for a larger proportion of cases, 22% in 1995 compared with 16% in 1985. And, finally, of the 336,100 person offenses handled by the juvenile courts in 1994, over half were dismissed, 3 percent were processed as adults, 24 percent incarcerated and the remainder were on probation or some other alternative program.When reading over these statistics and trying to fathom the numbers of juvenile delinquents and their crimes, it raises a few important questions. What is being done to prevent this? And what are our governments (local and federally) doing to help? Money makes the world go round and without government help the many social workers, psychologists, counselors and doctors trying to help this situation would not be able to do their part. The juvenile justice system is funded by multiple sources (McNeece & Roberts, 1997). Almost no federal money is expended by juvenile courts to support ongoing operations, but demonstration projects are funded with grants from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This appears to be changing somewhat under the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994, with $377 million available in Fiscal Year 1996-2000 for crime prevention programs sponsored by local governments (1997). This money will also be administered by OJJDP. Other provisions of this act may also make federal funds Juvenile Delinquency 10available to courts for general administration ($150 million). Another $36 million has been authorized for “delinquent and at-risk youth” programs. A few private foundations als...
