© 2005 Behavioral Health Research Institute of the Southwest
612 Encino Place NE / Albuquerque, NM 87102 / 505.244.3099 / www.bhrcs.org

Drinking, Driving, and Drugs:
A Comparative Study of Juvenile Substance Abuse Offenders
in Bernalillo County, NM
By Nancy Owen Lewis, Ph.D. and Iyiin Chang, M.S.

5. RESPONSE BY JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Table 19.
Time of Incident

Preliminary Inquiry.

After a juvenile offender is referred to AJPPO, a case assignment officer screens the case. The circumstances surrounding the incident are examined, and past history is reviewed to determine whether a formal petition should be filed with the children’s court attorney or if the case should be handled informally. The decision is based on the type of offense, number of previous referrals, and circumstances surrounding the case (CYFD 1995, Lewis 1997). DWIs, felonies, warrants, and probation violation cases are generally referred to the children’s court attorney for formal disposition. Offenders who have had three or more misdemeanor referrals during the past two years may also be referred for formal disposition. AJJPO’s policy is actually stricter than the law. State statute allows the JPPO to informally dispose of three misdemeanor referrals per juvenile within a two-year period (NMSA 1978: 32A-2-7[1995 Repl]).

Types of Cases.

Table 20.
Disposition.

Informal Cases. Informal cases are handled by the AJPPO. Dispositions include Counsel and Release or participation in a program such as counseling, community service, or alcohol and drug education. Program compliance is monitored by trained volunteers, when available.

Formal Cases. Once a case is referred to the children’s court attorney, the attorney

decides whether sufficient evidence exists to file charges. If the evidence is weak, the case may be rejected or referred back to the AJPPO for informal supervision. Some referrals result in a Nolle Prosequi, which means the prosecutor has decided not to pursue the case any further.

Otherwise, a formal petition is filed and the offender arraigned. At the arraignment, the offender is asked to enter a plea. If there is no factual admission of guilt and no finding of delinquency, a Consent Decree may be issued. In this case, the offender agrees to comply with certain conditions of probation supervision for a six-month period, after which the charges are dismissed.

If the offender pleads "guilty" or "no contest," he or she may be adjudicated as a delinquent. If an offender pleads "not guilty," a hearing is conducted and evidence presented to the children’s court judge. A jury trial may occur at the request of the defense attorney. If an offender is convicted, a pre-dispositional report may be required, or the parties may agree on a disposition. In either case, a dispositional hearing is conducted, during which one or more sanctions may be imposed. These may include: 1) formal Probation by Terms and Judgment, 2) commitment to the New Mexico Boys School or New Mexico Girl’s School, 3) diagnostic evaluation, 4) custody at the detention home, 5) the Juvenile Intensive Probation Services Program (JIPS), 6) treatment, 7) fines, or 8) transfer to adult court.

Adjudicated offenders are normally placed on formal probation for two years. A field officer monitors compliance with requirements, which may include community service, restitution, drug testing, curfew, drug and alcohol education, treatment, or participation in the community corrections program.

Analysis of Procedures.

A process analysis was conducted to determine: 1) the time between incident, referral, and disposition dates, 2) actual dispositions, 3) sentence and program requirements, and 4) program tracking and compliance.

Incident to referral date. Sixty-six percent of substance abuse offenders were referred to AJPPO within a month of the incident. However, there were significant differences (p<.01) among the three study groups. Drug offenders were most likely to be referred within a month of the incident – 72.2% compared with 61.6% of alcohol offenders and 40.7% of DWI offenders.

In contrast, 22.1% of DWI offenders were referred 3 to 4+ months after the incident – compared with 6.0% of drug offenders and 4.6% of alcohol offenders.

Referral to disposition date. Informal cases were disposed of more quickly than formal cases. Nearly 48% of informal cases were disposed of within one month of referral compared to only 7% of formal cases. In 62.3% of the formal cases, the time between referral and disposition exceeded four months. Similarly, most temporary dispositions (54.4%) were imposed 4+ months after referral.

Type of Disposition. Approximately 53% of referrals (N=811) were processed informally. Nearly 37% (N=558) resulted in formal dispositions, while 3.8% (N=57) had temporary dispositions. In 6.1% of the cases (N=92), no dispositions were reported. Significant differences (p<.01) existed among the three groups (Table 20). A higher percentage of DWI referrals resulted in formal dispositions – 72.9% compared with 38.3% of drug referrals and 26.2% of alcohol referrals. Alcohol referrals were most likely to be handled informally. Approximately 64% of alcohol referrals resulted in informal dispositions, compared with 52.2% of drug cases and 12.7% of DWI cases. A higher percentage of DWI referrals had no recorded disposition – 11.9% compared with 5.2% for the drug and 6.2% for the alcohol referrals.

Relationship Between Disposition and Prior Referrals. Disposition was also examined for each index referral (N=1518) in terms of number of prior referrals (Table 21). Of the 368 index cases with 3 or more prior referrals, 61.1% (N=225) had formal dispositions. Of the 512 cases with 1 or 2 prior referrals, 38.9% (N=199) had formal dispositions. Of the 638 cases with no prior referrals, only 21% (N=134) had prior referrals.

DWI Cases. Of the 37 DWI cases with 3 or more prior referrals, 75.7% resulted in a formal disposition, compared with 80% of the cases with 1-2 prior referrals. Of the 46 cases with no prior referrals, 65.2% were processed formally.

Alcohol Cases. Of the 135 alcohol cases with 3 or more prior referrals, 51.1% resulted in a formal disposition, compared with 26.0% of the cases with 1-2 prior referrals. Of the 223 cases with no prior referrals, only 11.2% were processed formally.

Drug Cases. Of the 196 drug cases with 3 or more prior referrals, 65.3% resulted in a formal disposition, compared with 41.4% of the cases with 1- 2 prior referrals. Of the 369 cases with no prior referrals, only 21.4% resulted in formal dispositions.

Table 21.
Relationship between Disposition and Prior Referral.

Specific Dispositions.

Informal Dispositions . Of the 811 referrals that were processed informally, 25.5% (N=207) were cases rejected by the district attorney’s office (DA) for insufficient evidence, plea bargain, waiver of prosecution, age of juvenile, recommendation by the JPPO, or other. Even if a case is rejected by the DA, the offender may be required to attend certain programs. Fourteen offenders were required to participate in a program such as Alcohol and Drug Education (Tables 24-25).

Table 22.
Informal Dispositions

Cases were referred to an out-of-town agency.

Significant differences (p<.01) existed among the three study groups (Table 22). Given AJPPO’s policy of referring DWI cases for formal disposition, only 15 (13%) of the DWI cases were handled informally. Nine of those cases (60%) were referred to an out-of-town agency, while six (40%) were rejections from the district attorney’s office. In contrast, 13.2% of the alcohol cases and 12.3% of the drug cases were referred to an out-of-town agency. Only 25% of the alcohol and drug cases were rejections from the district attorney’s office. Approximately 44% of alcohol and offenders were referred to a program -- the most common being the Youth Authority Court Program – while another 17% were "Counseled and Released."

Table 23.
Formal Dispositions

Table 24.
Informal Disposition.

Formal Dispositions. Of the 558 referrals that were handled formally, nearly 20% (N=110) were dismissed by the court. Of the remaining cases, the three most common dispositions were Consent Decree (37.1%), Nolle Prosequi (29.9%), and Probation and Terms by Judgment (7.9%). Significant differences (p<.01) existed among the three study groups (Table 23). A higher percentage of DWI cases resulted in a Consent Decree – 70.9% compared with 20.1% of alcohol cases and 35.4% of drug cases. In contrast, a smaller percentage of DWI cases were dismissed by the court – 7.0% compared with 28.8% of alcohol cases and 19.2% of drug cases. Similarly, a smaller percentage of DWI cases resulted in a disposition of Nolle Prosequi – 11.6% compared with 43.9% for alcohol cases and 28.8% for the drug cases. A smaller percentage of alcohol cases resulted in a disposition of Probation and Terms by Judgment– 3.6% compared with 8.1% for DWI cases and 9.6% for drug cases.

Program Requirements for Formal Dispositions. Certain dispositions, such as Consent Decrees and Probation and Terms by Judgment, required participation in a program (Tables 24-25). Approximately 54% (N=303) of the 558 formal cases involved a program referral, the most common being Alcohol and Drug Education. Twenty-five percent (N=140) of formally-processed offenders were referred to this seven-week course conducted by AJPPO staff. This program included a brief screening for alcohol problems using the Alcohol Involvement Scale. Other referrals included counseling (16.8%), restitution (15.9%), community service (13.7%), and other (24%).

Of the three groups, DWI offenders were most likely to be referred to a program. Over 75% of the formal DWI cases involved a referral, compared to 36.7% of the formal alcohol cases and 56.2% of the formal drug cases. The most common referrals for all three offender groups were: 1) Alcohol and Drug Education Class, 2) restitution program, 3) counseling, and 4) community service.

Temporary Dispositions. Approximately 4% of referrals (N=57) resulted in a temporary disposition. These included postponement (38.6%), failure to appear (24.6%), time waiver (22.8%), "not guilty" plea (12.3%), and 90-days at YDDC (1.8%). Eight of these dispositions included a program referral (Tables 24-25). The 57 temporary dispositions included 3 DWI cases, 17 alcohol cases, and 37 drug cases. Two DWI cases involved a failure to appear, while one was a postponement. Of the 17 alcohol cases, 8 were postponements, 6 involved a failure to appear, 2 were time waivers, and 1 involved 90-days at YDDC. The 37 drug cases consisted of 13 postponements, 11 time waivers, 7 "not guilty" pleas, and 6 for failure to appear.

Program Requirement Summary. Forty-five percent of offenders (N=676) were referred to one or more programs. A higher percentage of DWI offenders were referred to programs – 56.7% (N=67) compared with 39.2% (N=208) of alcohol offenders and 46.1% (N=401) of drug offenders. Ninety-seven percent of the DWI program referrals were associated with formal dispositions, while most alcohol (74.5%) and drug referrals (51.8%) were associated with informal dispositions. The "Youth Authority Program (YA)" or "Non-YA Program" was listed as the informal disposition for 151 alcohol offenders and 208 drug offenders (Table 22). Another 57 alcohol offenders, 201 drug offenders, and 67 DWI offenders were referred to one or more programs as a condition of probation or other disposition (Tables 24-25). In terms of the study population, 9.9% were referred to the Drug and Alcohol Education Program; 6.3% to counseling; 5.9% to the restitution program; and 5.2% to community service.

Table 24.
Program Referrals by Offender Type

Table 25.
Program Referrals by Disposition

Compliance.

The only completion information tracked by the main computer system was "date released from probation." These data, however, applied to formal dispositions, which comprised less than 37% of the total referrals. It should be noted that of the 558 formally-processed cases, 235 (42.1%) had a date indicating "released from probation." These included 90.3% (N=187) of the Consent Decree cases and 77.3% (N=34) of those with a disposition of Probation and Terms by Judgment

Completion data were examined for each offender group. Of the 139 formal alcohol cases, only 22.3% (N=31) had a date indicating release from probation. These included 3 of the 5 cases with a disposition of Probation and Terms by Judgment and 25 of the 28 cases resulting in a Consent Decree. In contrast, 42.0% (N=140) of the 333 drug cases referred for formal disposition had a date indicating release from probation. These included 25 of the 32 cases with a disposition of Probation and Terms by Judgment and 104 of the 118 cases resulting in a Consent Decree. Over 74% (N=64) of the 86 DWI cases referred for formal disposition had a date indicating release from probation. These included 6 of the 7 cases with a disposition of Probation and Terms by Judgment and 58 of the 61 cases resulting in a Consent Decree.