The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. 

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: 

Document Title: Delays in Youth Justice 

Author: Jeffrey A. Butts, Gretchen Ruth Cusick, and 

Benjamin Adams 

Document No.: 228493 

Date Received: October 2009 

Award Number: 2005-IJ-CX-0041 

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federallyfunded grant final report available electronically in addition to 

traditional paper copies. 

 

Opinions or points of view expressed are those 

of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect 

the official position or policies of the U.S. 

Department of Justice. 
Delays in Youth Justice

by

Jeffrey A. Butts

Gretchen Ruth Cusick

Benjamin Adams

2009

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

1313 East 60th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

Document prepared under grant number 2005-IJ-CX-0041 from the National 

Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
Delays in Youth Justice

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................... 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................... 5

PREFACE............................................................................................................................... 6

INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................. 8

Time and Adolescence

Policy and Practice

HISTORY OF DELAY............................................................................................................ 12

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DELAYED JUSTICE........................................................... 16

Resources/Workload

Jurisdiction Size

Case Characteristics

Procedures

Management and Organization

CONTROLLING DELAY...................................................................................................... 29

Legal/Professional Efforts to Control Delay

Managerial Efforts to Control Delay

CONTROLLING JUVENILE COURT DELAY.................................................................... 36

Constitutional Provisions

Limiting Due Process for Juveniles

Legislation and Rules in the Juvenile Court

RECENT TRENDS IN DELINQUENCY CASE PROCESSING TIME............................. 53

Case Processing Stages

Previous Trends

Study Sample

Findings

Discussion

DELAY REDUCTION EFFORTS IN THREE JUVENILE COURTS................................. 77

Hamilton County, Ohio

Kent County, Michigan

Peoria County, Illinois 

Discussion 

CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................... 99

REFERENCES 103

APPENDICES 114
Delays in Youth Justice 1

Executive Summary

The causes of delay in the youth justice system are complex. No single 

approach is likely to be effective in restoring the timeliness of the 

process. Researchers have successfully linked court delays to a wide 

range of factors, including resources and workload, jurisdiction size, 

case characteristics (e.g., offense type and severity), various procedural 

factors, management and organization, and the informal norms and 

values of a court. More research is needed, however, on the factors 

that facilitate or impede the timely processing of delinquency cases. 

The literature from criminal (adult) courts may be of limited value in 

understanding youth justice delays, as the individualized approach of 

juvenile court proceedings is more complicated and often takes more 

time at intake, detention, adjudication, and disposition. 

There are two basic approaches to controlling processing delays in 

the youth justice system: 1) managerial; and 2) legal/professional. 

The first approach is probably most important. It is essential to 

confront the organizational elements that contribute to delay. Unlike 

adult defendants in criminal courts, juveniles do not have a Sixth 

Amendment right to a speedy trial under the U.S. Constitution. A few 

states have provided something close to juvenile speedy trial rights for 

juveniles using statutes, court rules, or both. Other states have formally 

endorsed various administrative standards for the timely processing 

of juvenile cases. These standards are seldom mandatory, however, 

and wide variations remain within and across jurisdictions in juvenile 

delinquency case processing time. 

This study reviews the literature on court processing delay and the 

types of delay that most often affect delinquency cases in juvenile and 

family courts. It places the concept of court delay in a legal, social, 

and organizational context and describes the wide range of approaches 

used to prevent or control unwanted delay, including legislation, 

court rules, and professional standards. The analysis also describes 

the results of three case studies conducted in juvenile courts in the 

American Midwest: Hamilton County (Cincinnati, Ohio); Kent County 

(Grand Rapids, Michigan); and Peoria County (Peoria, Illinois). These 

jurisdictions were selected because they each used a different approach 

to controlling and reducing unwanted juvenile court delays and they 

were all regarded as effective by their peers, according to a series of 

interviews conducted by the researchers with juvenile court leaders 

around the United States. 
Delays in Youth Justice 2

In each of the three courts, researchers interviewed judges and other 

staff, observed delinquency proceedings, and reviewed court records 

and statistical reports. The key findings of the case studies include:

■ The juvenile court in Hamilton County, Ohio uses a sophisticated 

and relatively expensive automated case management system to 

control delay and manage court operations. The court has been 

very successful in reducing unwanted delays and in documenting 

its progress in managing the flow of cases. For other jurisdictions 

with sufficient resources to acquire such complex automated case 

management systems, the Hamilton County approach may be 

very instructive. 

■ In Kent County, Michigan, the juvenile court relies on 

guidelines and time standards to establish acceptable processing 

times and then uses a targeted case management approach 

and customized data collection and reporting to monitor its 

performance. With the benefit of strong judicial leadership and 

able court management, the juvenile court established a team of 

staff to oversee case processing and to disseminate a series of 

performance measures to track and compare processing times. 

The Kent County approach depends on a strong local court 

culture that stresses self-evaluation. This strategy would be 

effective for courts that do not have the resources to acquire and 

implement technologically advanced information systems.

■ Peoria County, Illinois is a small jurisdiction with few court 

personnel. Its system for monitoring and controlling delay is 

largely paper-driven. In recent years, the judiciary was able to 

identify cases that were lagging, but staff cuts made it difficult to 

improve timeliness. The probation department then developed a 

simple data base to track cases, which provided immediate and 

useful information about caseloads, services, and placements. 

The County’s relatively stable courtroom workgroups and 

judicial motivation to reduce delay also contributed to the 

efficiency of the system. Peoria’s experience underscores the 

value of simple information management in an environment of 

scarce resources and limited personnel. 

To examine the larger context of juvenile justice delays, this study 

also examines twenty years of case-level delinquency data from the 

National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is managed for the U.S. 

Department of Justice by the National Center for Juvenile Justice 

(NCJJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The analysis includes information 

from a large sample of juvenile courts and cases handled from 1995 to 

2004, and it compares those results with an earlier study that analyzed 

delinquency processing from 1985 to 1994. Although the earlier study 

showed that processing times were increasing for delinquency cases 

nationwide, processing times decreased 10 percent from 1995 to 2004. 
Delays in Youth Justice 3

The number of delinquency cases decreased eight percent during the 

same period. In both time periods, processing time for delinquency 

cass is related to jurisdiction size. In the most recent data, the median 

time to disposition was 49 days in large counties, 40 days in midsize 

jurisdictions, and 34 days in small jurisdictions. As in the earlier study, 

petitioned (or formally charged) cases take longer to process than nonpetitioned cases. Forty percent of petitioned cases took more than 90 

days to process (exceeding all professional standards). There were 

other variations with respect to total processing time. Among petitioned 

cases, for example, those involving the use of secure detention were 

processed more quickly. In addition, the average time to disposition 

was lowest in jurisdictions with the highest rates of adjudication. 

The median processing time in large jurisdictions decreased between 

1995 and 2004, regardless of changes in caseload size, while in midsize and small jurisdictions, processing time increased only when 

caseloads increased. Longer processing times were associated with 

formally charged cases that did not result in adjudication. Forty-five 

percent of these cases took more than 90 days to conclude. These were 

likely cases held open pending other actions, such as when a juvenile 

is offered an opportunity to complete a program of voluntary services 

and sanctions. 

Processing times varied according to offense type, regardless of county 

size. Among adjudicated case, those receiving dispositions involving 

an out-of-home placement were processed more quickly than those that 

received other sanctions or services. Of course, the court data used in 

this study only measure the use of an out-of-home disposition; they do 

not indicate when a youth actually goes into a court-ordered placement. 

Some youth may wait in detention while the court searches for an open 

residential bed. Thus, time to disposition may not be synonymous with 

time awaiting placement.

Between 1995 and 2004, processing time decreased the most (11%) 

in large jurisdictions with declining delinquency rates, but there was 

no easy link between jurisdiction size, caseload size, and processing 

time. The formal delinquency caseload in small counties increased 

by 12 percent but processing times remained unchanged during the 

period from 1995 to 2004. In large counties, the formal delinquency 

caseload decreased by five percent, but median processing times fell 12 

percent. Even in large counties that experienced a 50 percent increase 

in their formal delinquency caseloads, median time to disposition fell 

11 percent. In sum, case processing times decreased between 1995 
Delays in Youth Justice 4

and 2004. Although the delinquency caseload also decreased during 

this period, case processing time was more than simply a function of 

caseload size. The sharpest declines in processing time appeared in: 1) 

large counties; 2) counties with large proportions of formally processed 

cases involving secure detention; and 3) those with large proportions of 

public order offenses. 

This report summarizes the findings of a large-scale research project 

on processing delays in youth justice systems across the United 

States. The purpose of the project was to provide the youth justice 

field with empirical information about recent trends in delinquency 

case processing and to describe the best efforts of local juvenile court 

managers to measure case processing time and improve the efficiency 

and effectiveness of the court process. Youth justice delays have 

clearly not disappeared in U.S. juvenile courts. There are still many 

jurisdictions where the median processing time for delinquency cases 

exceeds even the most lenient professional standards promulgated by 

national organizations and commissions. As juvenile and family courts 

work to improve the timeliness of their services and sanctions and to 

share what they learn with others, they will continue to need better 

information about the causes and consequences of delay, the best 

methods for controlling delay, and a range of techniques for measuring 

and comparing case processing time. 

Delays in youth justice can have negative consequences for youth, their 

families, and their communities. Especially given the developmental 

immaturity of adolescents, swift intervention is likely to be more 

effective with youthful offenders, both in achieving the specific 

deterrent effects of punishment and in realizing the potential benefits 

of treatment and other services. Improving the timeliness of the justice 

process is far more than a technical matter for managers and judges. It 

is a critical part of policy and practice in ensuring that the youth justice 

system fulfills its basic mission.
Delays in Youth Justice 5

Acknowledgements 

The authors are grateful to Ms. Marilyn Moses of the National Institute 

of Justice for her support and encouragement in the completion of this 

project. The research itself would not have been possible without the 

partnership and support of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

especially the former director of systems research, Howard N. Snyder 

and the former lead programmer for the National Juvenile Court Data 

Archive, Terence Finnegan. The authors also appreciate the contribution 

of their Chapin Hall colleagues, Elissa Gitlow, who was instrumental 

in the design and conduct of the project’s practitioner interviews, and 

Nathan Hess, who conducted the study’s update of statutes and state 

court rules governing the handling of delinquency cases in juvenile 

and family courts. Finally, the judges, administrators, attorneys, and 

court staff interviewed for this project were a key to its success. The 

authors would like to thank the following individuals from the three 

jurisdictions visited by the project team:

Hamilton County, Ohio

John Cullum, Chief Deputy Clerk

Melinda Klenk, Executive Director of Docketing and Case Management

Mark Reed, Court Administrator

M. Edward Ryan, Chief Probation Officer

Kathy Watkins, Magistrate

Kent County, Michigan

Doug Dok, Jr., Referee

David Drain, Deputy Court Administrator for Management

Doug Gaddy, Intake Department Supervisor

Hon. G. Patrick Hillary

Terry Holtrop, Case Management Manager

Jim Koetsier, Deputy Circuit Court Administrator

Jack Roedema, Circuit Court Administrator

Vicki Seidl, Senior Attorney, Kent County Prosecutor’s Office

Brian Vogel, Supervisor of Probation

Peoria County, Illinois

Hon. Chris L. Fredericksen

Steven Kossman, Direcetor of Probation and Court Service

Michael Spokely, Chief, Juvenile Division, Assistant State’s Attorney
Delays in Youth Justice 6

Preface 

The only federally-funded research project on delays in the juvenile 

justice system was published more than a decade ago (Butts, 1996 & 

1997; Butts and Halemba, 1996). Since then, juvenile justice delay has 

become a more prominent concern for policymakers, practitioners, 

and the public. Increasingly, juvenile courts monitor the speed of their 

delinquency process either to comply with statutory and administrative 

standards or simply to control the delays in adjudication and disposition 

that can weaken the impact of court sanctions. Few resources exist, 

however, for comparing the methods and successes of jurisdictions as 

they seek to identify and reduce unwanted delays. Practitioners and 

policymakers need research that can assist them in developing effective 

strategies for controlling delay and in disseminating outcomes from 

delay-reduction efforts. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute 

of Justice (NIJ), Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago recently 

addressed the gap in research knowledge about youth justice delay. The 

Chapin Hall team worked in collaboration with staff at the National 

Center for Juvenile Justice and with the staff and leadership of three 

juvenile courts in the Midwestern United States. The study investigated 

the social and legal context of juvenile court delay, examined the 

timing of delinquency proceedings across the country, and reviewed 

the methods currently used to track case processing time in small, midsized, and large juvenile courts. The goal of the project was to increase 

practitioner knowledge about the origins and impacts of processing 

delays and to encourage the development of new approaches for 

monitoring and evaluating the timeliness of the delinquency process.

The research team began by reviewing the professional and academic 

literature about case processing time and the policy context of 

juvenile justice delay. The researchers then visited three juvenile court 

jurisdictions in the Midwest: Hamilton County, Ohio (including the 

city of Cincinnati), Kent County, Michigan (including the city of Grand 

Rapids), and Peoria County, Illinois. During each visit, the Chapin Hall 

team met with and interviewed court administrators, judges and staff 

to discuss the range of obstacles they faced in reducing delinquency 

delays and their methods for doing so. 

Finally, the project team analyzed the timing of delinquency case 

processing in a large sample of jurisdictions across the United States. 
Delays in Youth Justice 7

As in the previous study of delinquency delays, this study used data 

from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive at the National Center 

for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The analysis 

was designed to replicate and update the findings of the previous study. 

It reviewed the stages of the juvenile court process and examined 

trends in case processing time within various categories and types of 

delinquency cases.

The previous study reported that the median disposition time for 

delinquency cases had increased 26 percent between 1985 and 1994, 

and a large proportion of delinquency cases handled in U.S. courts 

exceeded established professional standards for processing time. 

Policymakers and practitioners need to know whether the efficiency 

of youth justice has improved, stayed the same, or deteriorated since 

the mid-1990s. The American juvenile justice system experienced 

significant changes in recent decades. The number of law violations 

handled by U.S. juvenile courts grew considerably through most of 

the 1990s and then declined through 2004 (Stahl et al., 2007). The 

number of formally processed delinquency cases nearly doubled 

between 1985 and 1997 and then dropped ten percent between 1997 

and 2004. Practitioners do not know whether these changes influenced 

the efficiency of the juvenile justice process because the timeliness of 

delinquency processing is not tracked as carefully as other statistics 

about juvenile crime. This study addresses this lack of knowledge.
Delays in Youth Justice 8

Introduction

The effectiveness of the juvenile justice process depends at least in 

part on its timeliness. Slow and inefficient case processing prevents 

the timely receipt of court-ordered services and sanctions for juvenile 

offenders. Unless the juvenile court intervenes shortly after the 

occurrence of an offense, many youth become recidivists before the 

court has even had the opportunity to respond to their prior offenses. 

In one study of 4,300 juvenile offenders in Phoenix, more than a third 

(38%) of all youth were re-arrested within one year of their first offense 

and nearly half (46%) of those new arrests occurred before the juvenile 

court had reached a final disposition on the first case (Rebeck, 2003). 

In other words, a juvenile court process that takes too long virtually 

guarantees that many youth will receive no sanctions or court-ordered 

services until after their next offense. Court processing delays interfere 

with the court’s ability to achieve its stated goals of early intervention 

and rehabilitation. 

Delays in youth justice may also prevent the effective use of 

punishment. Economists refer to the phenomenon as the “discounting” 

of punishment: “a punishment at some time in the future has a smaller 

deterrent and retributive effect than the same punishment in the present” 

(Listokin, 2006: 1). There is still very little research on the topic, but it 

appears that youth are less likely to re-offend when the justice system 

handles their cases efficiently. One European study found that a mild, 

but quick punishment was the most effective behavioral deterrent for 

adolescents (Bol, 1995). A study from the United States suggested that 

even the speed of diversion may help to reduce recidivism (Barnoski, 

1997). Prosecutors from the State of Washington introduced a “fast 

track” process for juvenile offenders to divert minor offenses to 

Community Accountability Boards within twelve days as opposed to 

the normal waiting period of several months. In a follow-up study, 

six-month felony recidivism rates were low for all offenders due to 

the nature of the caseload affected by the program, but fast-tracked 

juveniles re-offended at one-third the rate of a comparison group (4% 

versus 12%).

Decades of research have established that the celerity (or speed) of 

punishment is related to its impact on behavior (e.g., Aronfreed and 

Reber, 1965; Banks and Vogel-Sprott, 1965; Deluty, 1978; Johnston, 

1972; Miller, Reid and Porter, 1967). Most basic research on celerity, 

however, derives from laboratory experiments. Generalizing from 
Delays in Youth Justice 9

controlled experiments to actual application in the justice system can 

be risky. Laboratory studies are often concerned with time intervals of 

minutes or seconds rather than weeks or months. In addition, justice 

researchers argue that laboratory experiments have limited relevance 

to the criminal justice system because court sanctions cannot be 

(and should not be) applied as consistently or predictably as are the 

behavioral reinforcements in laboratory studies (Zimring and Hawkins, 

1973). 

Speed is not the only indicator of quality justice and it is not always 

associated with general deterrence (i.e., crime rates in general). Bailey 

(1980) analyzed the timing of capital sentences and their effect on 

homicide rates and found that swiftness was not a general deterrent. 

Selke (1983) assessed the deterrent effect of swift punishment in adult 

burglary cases and found that the length of time between arrest and 

sentencing had only a moderate effect on arrest rates for burglary (p < 

.10). On the other hand, research assessing the impact of state policies 

toward alcohol-impaired driving found that controlling the celerity of 

punishment could reduce single vehicle nighttime fatalities (Legge 

and Park, 1994). Another study found that the overall rate of property 

crime in Italy was partly related to the average lag time between arrest 

and punishment (Pellegrina, 2008). Studies of the role of celerity in 

specific deterrence (i.e., on individual offenders) have also been mixed. 

In a survey of college students, Nagin and Pogarsky (2001) found that 

celerity of punishment did not predict the likelihood of drunk driving. 

A study of recidivism among drunk-driving adults found that the time 

between arrest and punishment did not have a direct, independent effect 

on individual recidivism (Yu, 1994). Yet, celerity and severity together 

did seem to reduce recidivism. In other words, severe punishments 

imposed swiftly may reduce recidivism more effectively than can 

either severe or swift punishments alone. 

Time and Adolescence

The speed of punishment is a basic component of deterrence. 

To be effective in shaping future behavior, punishment has to be 

prompt. If not, individuals are less likely to attribute their receipt of 

punishment to the offending behavior and legal sanctions will be less 

effective in reducing future offending. Timely sanctions may be even 

more important for juveniles. Developmental differences between 

adolescents and adults suggest that the timing of court processing 

could impact younger offenders differently. Cognitive functions, such 

as the capacity to reason and to anticipate consequences, continue to 

Developmental 

differences 

between 

adolescents 

and adults 

suggest that the 

timing of court 

processing could 

impact younger 

offenders 

differently. 
Delays in Youth Justice 10

develop throughout mid to late adolescence. Research has shown that 

adolescents have fewer of the cognitive abilities needed to understand 

the court process, and even older adolescents differ from adults in the 

cognitive functioning required for mature judgments (Grisso et al., 

2003; Tobey, Grisso, and Schwartz, 2000). 

Adolescents and adults are simply different. While many adolescents 

have the cognitive abilities to participate in the court process, they 

may lack the psychosocial maturity required for sound judgment and 

decision-making. Developmental differences in psychosocial maturity 

call into question the treatment of adolescents in an increasingly punitive 

juvenile court system. In particular, issues of developmental status 

raise questions regarding the competency of adolescents to understand 

fully the impact of court proceedings (Steinberg and Schwartz, 2000). 

One study found that juvenile offenders were more easily distracted 

in court, more likely to exhibit poor demeanor, to become bored with 

the court process, and to make decisions based solely on immediate 

concerns (Tobey, Grisso, and Schwartz, 2000). Few jurisdictions 

formally recognize developmental maturity as a basis for competence, 

but researchers argue that developmental status should be relevant 

when determining adjudicative competence (Bonnie and Grisso, 2000; 

Grisso, 2000; Grisso et al., 2003) and in decisions regarding leniency 

toward juvenile offenders and the transfer of juveniles to criminal court 

(Brink, 2004; Grisso, 1996). 

In addition to issues surrounding competence and lenience, 

psychosocial maturity is relevant to the timeliness and impact of 

juvenile court dispositions. Adolescents have less ability to take 

long-term consequences into consideration and a greater propensity 

for shortsighted decision-making (Grisso, 2000; Grisso et al., 2003). 

Particularly in stressful circumstances, adolescents can exhibit a sense 

of “futurelessness” in evaluating the possible gains and risks associated 

with personal behavior and choices (Grisso, 1996). With less ability to 

anticipate long-term consequences, juvenile offenders would tend to 

focus on the short term (Steinberg and Cauffman, 1996). Their primary 

motivation may be for court proceedings to end, regardless of outcome. 

As the court process takes longer, youth may be less able to assist in 

their defense and to ensure a just outcome. Timely case processing has 

the potential to generate better outcomes for youth, their families, and 

their communities. 
Delays in Youth Justice 11

Policy and Practice

Research suggests that the effectiveness of the juvenile justice process 

depends at least in part on its timeliness. Yet, most jurisdictions in the 

United States still place no mandatory time limits on the juvenile court’s 

processing of delinquency cases, either through rules or legislation 

(Butts and Sanborn, 1999). Only a handful of state courts have 

recognized some form of speedy trial rights for accused juveniles and 

some have explicitly denied juveniles this right (Butts, 1996). Since the 

1970s, several national commissions have promulgated standards and 

guidelines for the handling of juvenile delinquency cases. The impact 

of these efforts, however, is uncertain. Organizational interventions 

such as coordinated case flow management systems may offer a 

more productive approach to dealing with juvenile justice delays, but 

their use is not yet widespread and little evidence exists about their 

effectiveness. Currently, the principal factor that determines whether 

an individual youth is afforded any protection against unreasonable 

juvenile court delay is where that youth happens to reside within 

the United States. Similar inconsistencies in other juvenile rights are 

sometimes described as providing “justice by geography” (Feld, 1991). 

The importance of time for the overall effectiveness of the juvenile justice 

system suggests that policymakers should consider a comprehensive 

approach to controlling the pace of juvenile court processing. To 

pursue such an approach, researchers need to measure more closely 

the impact of the patchwork of rules, statutes, and standards used to 

address juvenile court delay throughout the country. Practitioners must 

use the findings of research to refine their efforts to reduce unwanted 

delay in youth justice. 

The importance 

of time for 

the overall 

effectiveness 

of the juvenile 

justice system 

suggests that 

policymakers 

should consider 

a comprehensive 

approach to 

controlling the 

pace of juvenile 

court processing. 
Delays in Youth Justice 12

History of Delay 

Justice delay has a “long and notorious history” (Church et al., 1978:2). 

Researchers have noted references to the “law’s delay” by literary figures 

from Shakespeare and Moliere to Chekhov and Dickens (Fleming, 

1973; Haynes, 1973; Luskin, 1978; Neubauer and Ryan, 1982; Trotter 

and Cooper, 1982; Luskin and Luskin, 1986). Government officials 

have been concerned about court delay for decades. Chief Justice 

Earl Warren warned that “interminable and unjustifiable delays in our 

courts” could compromise the “basic legal rights” of Americans and 

eventually erode “the very foundations of constitutional government in 

the United States” (as quoted in Haynes, 1973:46-47). William Howard 

Taft asserted that the efficiency of the courts was a critical component 

in the effectiveness of the entire government: 

If one were asked in what respect we have fallen furthermost 

short of ideal conditions in our government, I think we would 

be justified in answering, in spite of the glaring defects of 

our system of municipal government, that it is our failure to 

secure expedition and thoroughness in the enforcement of 

public and private rights in our courts (as quoted in Haynes, 

1973:46). 

Such warnings been issued periodically throughout the past century 

and have prompted researchers and scholars as far back as the 

1920s to investigate the causes and effects of court delay (Pound 

and Frankfurter, 1922; Morse and Beattie, 1932). During the 1950s 

and 1960s, researchers examined delays in the handling of personal 

injury litigation (Rosenberg and Sovern, 1959), in the processing of 

civil court caseloads (Zeisel et al., 1959; Levin and Woolley, 1961), 

and in criminal prosecutions (Banfield and Anderson, 1968). Despite 

this lengthy history, the problem of court delay continues to generate 

concern and debate. 

Court delay appears to be a very stubborn problem. Solutions are often 

advanced to deal with delay, but few are thought to be successful. 

Some researchers have argued that court delay is uniquely resistant 

to intervention because two influential groups of court professionals 

tend to view delay in vastly different terms. Court administrators seek 

order, rationality and predictability in the courtroom, while judges and 

other attorneys are trained to think non-bureaucratically, and to place 

primary importance on the quality of the legal process rather than on 
Delays in Youth Justice 13

its efficiency (Saari, 1982). While administrators, judges, and attorneys 

share the common goal of providing justice and due process, their 

concerns about the timeliness of court procedures vary. 

The fact that court delay continues to cause problems despite extensive 

efforts to control it may also reflect a desirable tension between the 

conflicting goals of justice. Packer described two competing models 

that influence our thinking about the justice system—crime control 

and due process (Packer, 1968). Under the crime control model, the 

most important function of the justice system is to repress criminal 

conduct. The effectiveness of the system depends on uniformity, speed, 

and finality (i.e., low rates of appeal). Under the due process model, 

the central function of the justice system is to mediate disputes. The 

due process model stresses quality and thoroughness, and places less 

importance on efficiency or speed. 

Packer noted that the criminal justice system has tremendous destructive 

potential for civil liberties and social freedoms. Society must prevent 

the justice system from achieving maximum efficiency. Courts may be 

encouraged to pursue the crime-control values of uniformity, finality, 

and speed, but they should not be permitted ever to reach perfection. 

A reasonable level of court delay benefits society by providing a check 

upon the destructive powers of the State. Pervasive and chronic delays, 

however, impede due process which is also an important check upon 

State power. 

A certain magnitude of delay may be necessary for a court to function 

as an organization. The word “delay” is a pejorative term suggesting 

that faster is always better. Yet, the parties involved in a court case 

do not always desire a speedy resolution. Judges, attorneys, witnesses, 

and defendants may have competing interests that may be satisfied by 

slower rather than faster dispositions (Luskin, 1978; Sarat, 1978). If 

court administrators were to become too successful in reducing delays, 

prosecutors and defense attorneys would most likely take actions to 

restore some amount of delay, such as filing more motions or seeking 

additional continuances (Levin, 1975; Posner, 1973). 

Speed is one of the more easily measured standards with which to 

evaluate the performance of the justice system, but equating speed with 

effectiveness would be inappropriate. The task of court administration 

is not to eliminate delay but to control it. Of course, it is far easier to 

oppose unnecessary delay than it is to specify what forms of delay are 

unnecessary and then to control them. Obvious and excessive delays 

The fact that 

court delay 

continues to 

cause problems 

despite extensive 

efforts to control 

it may reflect a 

desirable tension 

between the 

conflicting goals 

of justice.
Delays in Youth Justice 14

have few defenders. Most of the inefficiencies in justice are caused by 

non-obvious and routine processing delays. 

Delay can have negative consequences for defendants, for court, and for 

society. For defendants, the costs of delay may include the temporary 

loss of income, the loss of employment altogether, and even the loss of 

due process (Levin, 1975:121). Defendants may spend months in jail 

waiting for the resolution of their trials. In pretrial facilities, relatively 

minor offenders may be forced to mingle with serious or violent 

offenders for extended periods. On the other hand, defendants may 

benefit if processing delays weaken the prosecution’s case by causing 

witnesses to lose memory of an incident or to drop out of the court 

process from frustration. In his study of criminal case processing in 

the New Haven Court of Common Pleas, Feeley (1992) found a shared 

belief among defense attorneys that delay was usually in the interests 

of their clients rather than those of the prosecution. These attorneys 

pointed out that in some cases “speedy trial is a denial of due process” 

(Feeley, 1992:134). 

In addition to its impact on defendants, delay interferes with the 

general effectiveness of the courts. Some researchers have warned 

that excessive delay may increase a court’s willingness to grant lenient 

case dispositions, thereby reducing the overall deterrent effect of the 

process (Banfield and Anderson, 1968). Long processing delays and 

case backlogs may make courts reluctant to engage in full-length trials, 

more tolerant of plea bargaining, and more receptive to the delaying 

tactics of attorneys. Delay may also weaken the certainty and finality 

of sanctions if the appellate process is prolonged unnecessarily (Levin, 

1975:128; Chapper and Hanson, 1988:7). In a cost-benefit framework, 

excessive court delay may increase both the “direct costs” and “error 

costs” of the legal process (Posner, 1973). Direct costs increase as court 

participants are compelled to spend considerable time and resources 

on tangential matters that do not lead directly to case dispositions. 

Error costs increase as witnesses drop out or other evidence becomes 

unavailable or less useful to the prosecution due to the passage of time 

(Cannavale and Falcon, 1976; Rosett and Cressey, 1976). 

Scholars have noted that a slow court process is much like other 

bureaucratic bottlenecks that often afflict human service organizations 

(Blumberg, 1967; Mather, 1979; Heumann, 1978; Eisenstein and Jacob, 

1977; Jacob, 1983). Mohr observed that sluggish court procedures may 

be inevitable since the courts serve a primarily impoverished clientele 

(Mohr, 1976:621). Large organizations designed to move people and 
Delays in Youth Justice 15

their problems through a complicated decision-making process will 

inevitably confront inefficiencies. When the people served by the 

organization are mostly from poor, low-status communities, there is an 

increased tendency for the processing organization to be under-staffed, 

under-funded, and overwhelmed by its workload. For the poor and 

disadvantaged, therefore, court delay may be just one more experience 

with organizational maltreatment. 
Delays in Youth Justice 16

Causes and Effects 

of Delayed Justice

Concerns about delayed justice have existed for centuries, but most 

studies on the causes and consequences of delay are relatively recent. 

The vast majority of existing research appeared after 1970. Recent 

studies have investigated the correlation between delays and offenderspecific factors such as the seriousness of offenses involved in a case, 

the prior record of the offender, and the pre-trial custody status of the 

offender. Other researchers have looked at the size of court caseloads, 

judicial workloads, the number and complexity of attorney motions, 

and policies governing the granting of continuances. Some studies have 

suggested that case processing time is affected by docket management 

systems (e.g., master versus individual docket) or the impact of informal 

norms and attitudes about case processing time. 

After several decades of studying justice delays, researchers concluded 

that there are many potential causes of delay and they do not always 

work the same way. Depending on the particular study, the speed 

of case processing may vary independently of most of the factors 

commonly thought to cause delay, such as offender characteristics, 

court resources, and courtroom procedures. Feeley observed that delay 

is never one problem, but more of a syndrome of related problems—

”delay is a blanket term covering a host of different problems caused by 

various factors, all requiring different responses” (Feeley, 1983:182). 

A particular case handling practice may create backlogs in one court, 

but the same practice in other courts may not generate delay. Moreover, 

delay may be caused by “cultural” elements that have little to do with 

policy and procedure, such as staff attitudes and informal customs. 

Even cultural factors, however, will never fully explain why case 

delays develop, nor will they help courts to avoid or reduce all delays. 

To develop a full understanding of court delay, it is necessary to take 

account of a wide range of forces inside and outside the court. Courts 

are organizations. As such, they are partly the product of external 

forces, such as the extent of competition and cooperation between 

related organizations, market characteristics, cultural values, economic 

conditions, and the political climate. Without an understanding of the 

relationship between an organization and its environment, researchers 

may be misled by meaningless empirical relationships between internal 

management characteristics and organizational outcomes. 
Delays in Youth Justice 17

Most studies of court delay have focused on the civil and criminal justice 

systems. There are very few studies on the timing of the juvenile justice 

process. One investigation found that even by the 1980s there was 

“essentially no literature on the delay of juvenile justice” (Mahoney, 

1985:37). Although there is growing interest in juvenile justice practice 

that improves the timing of case processing (e.g., Mahoney, 1987; 

Feld, 1993; Butts and Halemba, 1996; National Council of Juvenile 

and Family Court Judges, 2005), most empirical understanding of 

delay continues to originate in research on the criminal and civil courts 

(Heise, 2000). For at least 50 years, researchers have been measuring 

the various influences on court delay and attempting to specify why 

and how some courts are faster than are others. 

Resources / Workload

The earliest studies of court delay advanced a rather simple notion. In 

the first comprehensive study of delay, Zeisel, Kalven and Buchholz 

(1959) attributed delay to an imbalance of supply and demand—i.e., 

cases move slowly when the demand for court time overwhelms the 

potential supply of judges. Given this perspective, the obvious solution 

to court delay was to add more judges. Zeisel and his colleagues wrote 

confidently that “it takes no ghost come from the grave to tell us 

that delay can be cured by adding more judges” (Zeisel, Kalven and 

Buchholz, 1959:8). 

Other early accounts promoted similar views. In 1967, the President’s 

Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice issued 

a task force report on the operation of U.S. courts that described the 

problem of court delay and listed various causes for it, including a 

lack of resources and increasing caseloads (President’s Commission, 

1967:82). Rosenberg characterized court delay as an outcome of 

inadequate court management that allowed the demand for services to 

overtake supply (1965). Ten years later, Gillespie (1977: 1) reviewed 

the literature on delay and identified a familiar set of factors thought to 

cause delay: 

“... archaic procedures, judicially mandated changes in 

criminal procedures to make ‘due process’ more meticulous 

and protective of the rights of the accused, lack of court 

resources to cope with the ‘litigation explosion,’ a shortage 

of trial lawyers, or—in the view of an early researcher in 

the area—simply a lack of administrative will by the courts 

themselves.” 

For at least 

50 years, 

researchers have 

been measuring 

the various 

influences on 

court delay and 

attempting to 

specify why and 

how some courts 

are faster than 

are others.
Delays in Youth Justice 18

Church and his colleagues noted in the late 1970s that the imbalance 

of resources and workload was the “most commonly asserted cause 

of delayed case disposition” (Church et al., 1978:24). Researchers 

typically focused on staffing shortages, budget limitations, overworked 

judges, lack of courtrooms, etc. Their studies often began by assuming 

that more resources would enable courts to cope better with their 

workloads, which would reduce delay (e.g., Miller, 1966; Banfield and 

Anderson, 1968; Frank, 1969; Katz, Litwin, and Bamberger, 1972). 

Yet, these studies generally failed to confirm their central hypothesis. 

Research on trial times in courts with varying levels of judicial resources 

(or those that examined single courts whose judicial resources varied 

over time) consistently failed to find a strong association between 

delayed case processing and lower levels of judicial resources (Rhodes, 

1976; Campbell, 1973; Gillespie, 1977; Goerdt et al., 1989:74). 

Most practitioners, however, continued to believe that resources and 

workload determined a court’s ability to be efficient. 

Some studies suggested that other factors—some of which tend to 

occur under conditions of high workload—may be more directly 

responsible for the extent of processing delays. Levin (1975:97) 

argued that a large workload indirectly brings about delay by creating 

opportunities for court participants to prolong the dispositional process 

in particular cases. Defense attorneys take advantage of the pressures 

created by a large workload to engage in plea bargaining or “judge 

shopping,” knowing a court will be more willing to grant continuances 

if it faces a large backlog. Other delaying tactics, such as filing multiple 

motions or requesting full-length trials, may be used more often by 

attorneys in courts with large backlogs. In general, however, research 

suggests that it is overly simplistic to assume that delay is solely a 

function of workload and that additional court resources will clear up 

all delay problems. Courts with large caseloads (or those with a high 

ratio of cases per judge) are not necessarily slower than courts with 

small caseloads (Heise, 2000). While resources and workload must be 

included in any effort to explain or reduce delay, their effect on case 

processing time is often indirect. 

Jurisdiction Size 

Many criminal justice professionals assume that only large jurisdictions 

have court delay problems. Mahoney and his colleagues observed that 

“one of the most commonly held maxims about court delay” is that 

large, urban courts are far more likely to have delay problems simply 

because of their size (Mahoney et al., 1988:46). There was always 

While resources 

and workload 

must be included 

in any effort to 

explain or reduce 

delay, their 

effect on case 

processing time 

is often indirect.
Delays in Youth Justice 19

a grain of truth in this argument, but delays are clearly not simply a 

function of court size. Goerdt and his colleagues (1989:71–72) found 

“little, if any, relationship” between case processing time and the size 

of a court’s jurisdiction, the number of cases handled by the court, or 

the number of judges. Hagan and Zatz (1985) investigated the same 

question and found that size was not directly related to court processing 

time. Size was useful, however, in predicting the case handling style of 

police and prosecutors (e.g., the likelihood of a case being dismissed 

at pre-trial), which may be related to the severity of delay problems. 

Mahoney and his colleagues also found no relationship between the 

size of a court’s jurisdiction and the speed with which it was able to 

handle its caseload. Their study compared case processing times in 18 

urban trial courts. One of the elements of court structure they examined 

was the relationship between the size of a court and its ability to bring 

cases to final disposition in a timely fashion. The results suggested that 

smaller courts had no inherent advantage in case processing time when 

compared with larger courts (Mahoney et al., 1988:46). 

Similarly, the Pretrial Delay Project by Church and his colleagues 

found that while there was some association between size and delay, 

slow courts are not always large courts. Some of the smaller courts in 

the study were “substantially slower” than expected given their size 

(Church et al., 1978:24). The conclusion of most studies seems to be 

that delay problems are more likely in large jurisdictions, but significant 

variation remains among both smaller and larger jurisdictions in the 

ability to manage court caseloads effectively. Apparently, size alone 

does not cause case delay. 

Case Characteristics

Another common assumption among both researchers and practitioners 

is that courts with the most severe delays are those courts that handle 

a disproportionate number of “problem” cases. Problem cases may be 

defined as cases with serious offenses, cases involving defendants with 

lengthy prior records, cases involving bailed defendants, etc. Many 

researchers have found that case processing times tend to be longer 

when defendants are released to await trial (e.g., Swigert and Farrell, 

1980). Obviously, when a defendant is out on bail awaiting trial, it is in 

the defendant’s self interest to procrastinate since the final disposition 

of the case might involve incarceration (Wildhorn et al., 1977). Other 

court participants have reasons to give priority to jailed defendants 

(Luskin and Luskin, 1987:209). State statutes and court rules often 

require more speedy handling of cases when a defendant is in jail, and 

Delay problems 

are more 

likely in large 

jurisdictions, 

but significant 

variation 

remains among 

both smaller 

and larger 

jurisdictions 

in the ability 

to manage 

court caseloads 

effectively.
Delays in Youth Justice 20

the pressures created by jail over-crowding sometimes prompt courts 

to focus on resolving the cases of jailed defendants more quickly. 

Regardless of the reasons, it is clear that cases involving defendants 

who are in custody awaiting trial tend to reach disposition faster, on 

average, than cases involving defendants who are not in custody. One 

exception in the juvenile justice system, however, may be juveniles 

held in secure detention pending a motion for transfer to the criminal 

court system. Juveniles who are detained awaiting transfer may be in 

the court system far longer than the typical delinquency case (Butts and 

Gable, 1992). 

Some researchers have found that race and ethnicity may be associated 

with case processing time. Banfield and Anderson (1968) found that 

criminal cases with white defendants took longer, although one reason 

for the difference was that cases involving white defendants involved 

more continuances. Swigert and Farrell (1980) found evidence to 

suggest that homicide cases in which the defendant was white were 

processed more slowly than cases in which the defendant was black. 

In criminal cases of first-time defendants, Zatz and Lizotte (1985:324) 

found that defendant race was related to the time between arrest and 

disposition for cases resulting in guilty pleas as well as those involving 

trials. In both guilty plea and trial cases, Latino defendants were 

processed more quickly than white defendants (8% and 13% more 

rapidly, respectively). Criminal cases involving black defendants 

reached disposition at about the same rate as white defendants when 

the case resulted in trial. In cases involving guilty pleas, however, 

dispositions were significantly slower if the defendant was black. On 

the other hand, Neubauer and Ryan (1982:233) found no significant 

relationships between case processing time and defendant race. The 

conflicting and inconsistent results of the available research on race 

suggests that the impact of racial characteristics on processing speed is 

most likely an artifact of other factors. 

Several studies have suggested that the courts with the greatest delay 

problems are those with the most serious offenders. Hausner and Seidel 

(1979), for instance, found that the time required to process cases in 

the D.C. Superior Court increased with the average seriousness of the 

charges involved in a case. Time to disposition was greater in cases 

involving violent felonies such as robbery, rape, or homicide. In their 

comparison of 26 felony courts, Goerdt and his colleagues (1989) found 

a significant association between the proportion of cases involving drug 

sales and the length of case processing time in the court as a whole. 
Delays in Youth Justice 21

Zatz and Lizotte (1985) also found that offense severity was related to 

processing time, although not in a uniform way. They speculated that 

a prosecutor may prefer to share responsibility for serious cases with 

the judge, and that the court’s involvement would be naturally greater 

in such cases, thereby increasing delays (Zatz and Lizotte, 1985:324). 

Defendants in serious cases may also be more likely to prolong their 

plea decisions because charge severity increases the likelihood of a 

lengthy incarceration (Mather, 1979). Mahoney and his colleagues 

(1988) were unable to find evidence that case processing delays were 

caused by offense severity. They analyzed the proportion of serious 

cases in a court’s caseload and median case disposition time and found 

“little relationship” between the two (Mahoney et al., 1988:47). The 

findings of the Pretrial Delay Project also showed no relationship 

between the severity of a criminal court’s caseload and the extent of 

delay. Courts with the most serious caseloads did not seem to have 

difficulty handling cases efficiently (Church et al., 1978:29–30). 

Other researchers have explored whether court delay is a function of 

the overall mix of cases seen in a court rather than simply the offense 

profile of each case. Neubauer and Ryan (1982) analyzed case records 

and interview data from three criminal courts (Providence, Rhode 

Island, Dayton, Ohio, and Las Vegas, Nevada). The length of case 

processing time was positively correlated with three variables: 1) the 

number of motions filed in each case; 2) the “mode of disposition” being 

something other than a guilty plea; and 3) the pretrial custody status of 

the defendant (i.e., bailed cases were processed more slowly than jailed 

cases). Some first-order correlations in the analysis turned out to be the 

result of interactions between independent variables. Cases involving 

charges of burglary, for example, were processed more quickly because 

they were more likely than other charges to be disposed by guilty pleas, 

which reduced the time required to reach disposition (Neubauer and 

Ryan, 1982:221). 

Other researchers reached similar conclusions. One reason that case 

processing time may increase with the severity of charges involved in a 

case is that courts naturally spend more time and resources in reaching 

dispositions (e.g., negotiating pleas) when the charges are relatively 

serious. Cases involving serious charges may also be more likely 

to be disposed through trial, which leads to longer case processing 

(Mather, 1979). Luskin and Luskin (1987) found that “case-specific 

incentives” and case complexity had minor and inconsistent effects on 

case processing time, while “case events” and structural factors were 

more consistently predictive of the length of case processing. Among 
Delays in Youth Justice 22

case-specific factors, only the defendant’s pretrial custody status had 

significant and expected effects—cases were processed at least a month 

faster in all courts when the defendant was jailed during the pretrial 

period. Other case factors, including severity of offense, may have 

had significant associations in some courts but not others, leading the 

researchers to conclude that the effect of these factors was not essential 

to understanding variations in processing delays. 

Zatz and Lizotte (1985:318) tested whether case processing time was 

related to a defendant’s prior record. When a person has been arrested 

repeatedly, they hypothesized, he or she may become familiar to 

the prosecutors and judges in the court, and the court may be more 

comfortable reaching speedy decisions because of this prior knowledge. 

Experienced defendants may also exercise their choices about pleas 

differently than first-time defendants. Their greater experience may 

lead them to evaluate the prospects of conviction and incarceration 

differently. For this reason, Zatz (1982) suggested that case processing 

time should be analyzed within “ shifts,” where a shift is defined as 

an entire sample of cases with the same number of prior arrests (all 

first-time defendants, all those with one prior arrest, etc.). Zatz and 

Lizotte also tested whether the speed of case processing varies with 

offense specialization. Defendants arrested repeatedly for the same 

offense moved more slowly from arrest to disposition by trial (Zatz and 

Lizotte, 1985:329). The researchers observed that plea negotiations 

may be more intense and more complex in such cases due to the greater 

experience of everyone involved, and this prolongs the time before one 

party eventually demands a trial (see also Hagan and Zatz, 1985). 

The consensus of the research literature on case characteristics would 

appear to be that factors such as pre-trial custody status, offense 

severity, and a defendant’s prior record are often related to aggregate 

patterns of case processing time. Their connection to case processing 

time, however, may reflect the impact of case complexity on delay 

rather than straightforward associations between case processing time 

and each of these variables. Their relationship to case processing time 

can also be non-linear. An extensive prior record may increase the time 

to disposition in some cases, but other experienced defendants may 

reach disposition more quickly. Simply correlating case characteristics 

and the time to disposition may distort or even conceal the true nature 

of these associations. 

Several researchers have found that courts with high rates of private 

defense counsel tend to experience more delay. These studies suggest 

Factors such as 

pre-trial custody 

status, offense 

severity, and 

a defendant’s 

prior record are 

often related to 

case processing 

time, but this 

may reflect the 

impact of case 

complexity 

rather than a 

straightforward 

association 

between case 

processing time 

and each of these 

variables.
Delays in Youth Justice 23

that case processing time rises when a defendant is represented by 

private as opposed to court-appointed counsel because court-appointed 

attorneys are more subject to administrative control by the court and 

they accommodate more readily to court pressure for quick litigation 

(Wice, 1978). Of course, the relationship between case processing 

time and legal representation may be an artifact of the association 

between defendant resources and bail status—i.e., defendants able to 

afford private counsel are more likely to pay bail and to seek delayed 

disposition (Skolnick, 1967; Neubauer, 1974; Neubauer and Ryan, 

1982). 

Excessive delay may also be an indication of a relatively stable 

courtroom work group in which attorneys have become highly 

experienced. Experienced attorneys can become very skilled at defeating 

judicial efforts to control the speed of case processing (Galanter, 1974). 

Experienced attorney can sometimes be even more familiar than are 

judges with the informal norms of their shared courtrooms. If delay 

could benefit their clients, skilled attorneys may be able to manipulate 

court procedures to prevent timely dispositions (Rosett and Cressey, 

1976). Delay can also be advantageous to attorneys themselves, either 

from a financial or workload perspective. 

Procedures

Many researchers have studied court procedures in their efforts to 

understand delay. Obviously, the time a court must spend on a case 

derives at least in part from the complexity of the procedures required 

to reach a final disposition in the case. A number of procedural factors 

appeared to be associated with court delay— e.g., the number of 

continuances granted per case, the number of substantive motions filed 

per case, and the proportion of cases involving full-length trials (Levin, 

1975; Luskin and Luskin, 1987). Researchers have often asked why 

judges would contribute to delay problems by agreeing to repeated 

continuances. The literature on plea bargaining suggests that judges may 

sometimes tolerate excessive defense requests for continuances because 

the defense wields an implicit “threat” of forcing time-consuming trials 

by maintaining not-guilty pleas. Levin, however, found that most court 

participants did not think such threats were credible because defense 

attorneys were just as interested in avoiding trial as any other party 

(Levin, 1975:115). Some analysts have suggested that judges may grant 

large numbers of continuances out of concern for appellate reversals if 

the defense is able to argue it had insufficient time to prepare for trial 

(Fleming, 1973). In most courts, however, the actual rate of criminal 
Delays in Youth Justice 24

appeals is so low that this argument cannot explain judges’ willingness 

to grant continuances. Others argue that judges grant continuances out 

of professional courtesy to attorneys, and because they see a certain 

amount of delay as expected and normal. Feeley (1992:175) suggested 

that some judges prefer to give “blanket” approval to continuances 

rather than make the effort in every case to distinguish between 

legitimate and “concocted” reasons for continuances. 

Sometimes continuances may represent the best efforts of the court, 

the prosecutor, and defense counsel to reach a just disposition while 

minimizing formal court action. Pre-trial diversion programs, for 

example, may give defendants adequate time to demonstrate their desire 

for rehabilitation or to make restitution before being formally charged 

and/or adjudicated. When appropriate (i.e., cases involving minor 

charges, no priors, and compliant defendants), courts may agree to delay 

formal adjudication so that the defendant may complete a counseling 

program, obtain employment, repay a victim, etc. If a defendant were 

able to complete the service plan, the case would be dismissed, the 

defendant would be spared a criminal record, and the court would save 

the time and expense of additional filings and hearings. Researchers 

have long debated the role played by continuances in generating 

case processing delays. Zeisel (1959) found that continuances had a 

relatively minor impact on a court’s general ability to process cases in a 

timely manner. On the other hand, the Pretrial Delay Project concluded 

in the 1970s that while continuances may have a minor impact on a 

court’s aggregate case processing time, their secondary effects could 

be far more serious. Lenient policies on the use of continuances could 

influence a court’s organizational culture in a way that decreases 

concern about delay in general. 

Researchers have examined a number of other aspects of court 

operations for their association with delay, including the use of 

settlements versus full-length trials and the processes used to initiate 

formal criminal charges. Church and his colleagues reported that courts 

relying heavily on the grand jury process are more likely to experience 

delays than are courts using mostly indictment-based systems to bring 

charges (Church et al., 1978:46–47). The same study, however, did 

not find evidence to support one of the more logical theories of court 

delay—that jury trials increase delay and plea bargains decrease delay. 

In the analyses of the Pretrial Delay Project, no clear relationship 

existed between the proportion of a court’s caseload settled at pre-trial 

and its overall processing time (Church et al., 1978:31–36). 

Researchers have 

long debated 

the role played 

by continuances 

in generating 

case processing 

delays.
Delays in Youth Justice 25

Mahoney and his colleagues tested another common assumption—

that courts with large backlogs and slow processing times suffer from 

excessive continuances resulting from defendants failing to appear 

for scheduled hearings (Mahoney et al., 1988:38–39). They analyzed 

felony cases from a sample of criminal courts and measured the 

proportion of cases that involved bench warrants issued for defendants’ 

failure to appear. The study found no correlation between the proportion 

of a court’s caseload requiring bench warrants and its typical case 

processing time. When the researchers removed all cases involving 

bench warrants from their data base, there were virtually no changes 

in the rankings of 17 courts according to median case processing time. 

Delays due to bench warrants apparently did not explain variations in 

case processing time. 

Management and Organization 

Numerous studies have identified organizational and managerial 

problems as the root of court delay. A study reported at the 1972 Fourth 

National Symposium on Law Enforcement Science and Technology 

described criminal court delays as being largely a result of inadequate 

management (Foschio, 1973). A number of management-oriented 

studies have focused on the case scheduling or “calendaring” systems 

used by courts. Under a “master calendar” system, cases are assigned 

to judges at each stage of processing based upon availability. This 

means that each phase of case handling may be assigned to a different 

courtroom and to a different judge, with the possible result that no 

single judge is invested in moving the case along to a quick disposition. 

In contrast, an “individual calendar” system assigns a single judge the 

responsibility for each case, and that judge manages the case from 

start to finish. Individual calendar systems are thought to enhance a 

judge’s sense of ownership and responsibility for his or her caseload. 

In practice, there are very few “pure” systems of either individual or 

master calendars. Most courts use hybrid systems that are more like 

one or the other to varying degrees (Mahoney et al., 1988). 

Some studies have suggested that master calendaring systems facilitate 

speedy case handling by encouraging more efficient allocation of court 

resources (Luskin and Luskin, 1987:215). On the other hand, in some 

courts where master calendar systems were replaced by individual 

calendars, the result was a substantial increase in the speed and 

efficiency of case processing. More than 30 years ago, Church and his 

colleagues found a “striking” association between the use of master 

calendaring systems and longer case processing times in the handling 
Delays in Youth Justice 26

of civil cases (Church et al., 1978:37). In the handling of criminal cases, 

however, the relationship was not as strong. Neither the individual or 

master calendaring system was inherently more efficient for criminal 

cases. 

In their 1988 study, Mahoney and his colleagues agreed that while the 

individual calendar system appeared to be more efficient in handling 

civil cases, “neither the [individual calendar] system nor the master 

calendar system [was] appreciably more effective than the other in 

minimizing felony case delays” (Mahoney et al., 1988:73). Among 

their sample of criminal courts, the mean disposition time for courts 

using individual calendar systems was 84 days, compared to 109 days 

for those using master calendars. When the slowest master calendar 

court was omitted from the analysis, however, the mean disposition 

time for master calendar courts dropped to 71 days. The type of calendar 

system used by a court appeared to have less impact on the court’s 

overall processing time than whether the court actively managed the 

flow of cases early in the dispositional process. Individual calendars 

may encourage early intervention in case flow, which could be far 

more important in facilitating efficiency than the choice of calendaring 

system (Mahoney et al., 1988:80). 

Court Culture

Another perspective on delay points to a completely different set of 

causal factors. These factors include “informal practices,” such as 

when attorneys accommodate each other’s scheduling preferences and 

create endless continuances out of professional courtesy, “practitioner 

incentives” that encourage lawyers to organize their workload around 

billing needs rather than the needs of litigants, and “expectations and 

norms” that allow courts to accept as normal a pace of litigation that 

would seem excessively slow in other courts (Church, 1982:401–403). 

The degree of processing delay in one court versus another is likely to 

be affected by resources and procedures, but delay exists in the first 

place because the informal norms and expectations of court participants 

allow it to exist. Overtime, these informal norms and expectations lead 

court administrators, judges, and attorneys to believe that a certain 

amount of delay is “normal.” 

Nimmer (1976) described these norms and expectations as the “local 

discretionary system.” Others preferred the terms “local legal culture” 

(Church et al., 1978), or “socio-legal culture” (Neubauer et al., 1981). 

Researchers find that the roots of socio-legal culture can be very deep. 

The degree 

of processing 

delay in one 

court versus 

another is likely 

to be affected by 

resources and 

procedures, but 

delay exists in 

the first place 

because the 

informal norms 

and expectations 

of court 

participants 

allow it to exist.
Delays in Youth Justice 27

The “cultural” approach dominated research court delay throughout 

the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Raine and Wilson, 1993). Of course, like 

all conventional wisdom, the insight that court delay is caused by 

organizational culture is occasionally over-simplified. The cultural 

perspective, however, at least encourages researchers and practitioners 

to consider the self-interests of court participants and to seek reductions 

in court delay by altering the incentives that promote or inhibit desired 

behavior. Luskin and Luskin (1986:212) rejected the “nebulous” 

answers of local legal culture and recommended that researchers focus 

on whatever factors appear to be related empirically to case processing 

time. Other researchers agreed that the cultural approach to court delay 

could not adequately explain how delay develops and why some courts 

are able to avoid it while others seem unable to prevent it. Grossman 

and his colleagues argued that local legal culture was not even an 

explanation of court delay as much as it was “a convenient restatement 

of the problem” (Grossman et al., 1981:112). The fundamental assertion 

of the cultural approach, that “practices and attitudes toward court 

processing of attorneys and court personnel play a significant role in 

determining the pace of litigation in a particular court,” was, according 

to Grossman and his colleagues, already “generally accepted” by 

researchers (1981:112). 

Researchers have also focused on environmental forces. Mohr 

(1976:625) argued that the environmental school was the organizational 

perspective most appropriate for studying courts. Haynes (1973:52–54) 

asserted that the term “court delay” was actually a misnomer because 

it suggested that delays were caused by factors within the court itself. 

He noted that blaming delays entirely on the court ignores the large 

number of individuals and agencies that come into contact with a 

typical court case: police, prosecutors, the public (in reporting crimes), 

witnesses, defense counsel, investigators, judges, etc. At every step in 

the processing of a case, one or more of these actors can contribute to 

processing delays, although only some of them are formally a part of 

the court. 

Other researchers have noted that courts cannot be understood fully 

without recognizing their place in a larger network of organizations. 

Gillespie (1977) concluded that most causes of delay were external 

to the courts themselves. Particularly influential among these external 

factors were “professional legal inputs,” or the actions of the private 

bar, public defenders, and prosecuting attorneys (Gillespie, 1977:21). 

Feeley (1992) argued that the court process should be studied within 

the context of the entire justice system. He suggested that courts are 
Delays in Youth Justice 28

not classic bureaucracies but “open systems” that achieve their goals 

through interactions among the set of actors making up the justice 

system. Jacob (1983:191) defined the court itself as “groups of people 

engaged in a common task, interacting on a regular basis, performing 

specialized roles, utilizing specialized knowledge, and responding to 

some direction and supervision from others.” Eisenstein and Jacob 

(1977) characterized judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys as 

representatives of different organizations, working jointly on common 

goals. They studied “courtroom workgroups” to determine how the 

interactions of key actors contributed to organizational problems 

such as court delay. Each set of court actors pursues its own interests. 

Reducing court delay requires an organizational analysis to identify 

and target the system of incentives perpetuating delay. 

Courts exhibit hierarchy and a formal distribution of power, but they 

are not traditional organizations. While a judge is the “nominal and 

formal superior” of a courtroom work group, judges influence only 

some aspects of courtroom procedure while sharing responsibility for 

others (Jacob, 1983:194). Judges do not always control the assignment 

of staff in the courtroom, especially the assignment of attorneys, and 

they do not control the flow of cases. Moreover, “work group” members 

outside the court have considerable influence over the nature and speed 

of case processing. 

Although courts are not classic bureaucracies, researchers have learned 

much by viewing courts through an organizational lens. One of the 

most basic insights of organizational theory is that organizations have 

multiple goals. The primary goal of a court might be described as the 

production of timely, just, and effective case dispositions. Like all 

organizations, however, courts pursue a variety of secondary goals 

that are separate from this stated mission. One of the more essential 

secondary goals of the courts is to mediate the influence of the external 

environment. Courts attempt to limit the negative effects of outside 

forces and to protect their core activities from external manipulation 

(Jacob, 1983:198–200). While delay might seem to undermine the 

court’s primary mission, a certain degree of delay could be a rational 

outcome of the organization’s efforts to achieve other environmental 

goals, such as controlling the volume of the workload in order to prevent 

more serious organizational failures. Any attempt to explain or control 

court delay, therefore, should include an analysis of how delay may 

serve secondary but essential organizational goals. The organizational 

perspective is becoming the dominant approach to research on court 

delay. 

Reducing court 

delay requires an 

organizational 

analysis to 

identify and 

target the system 

of incentives 

perpetuating 

delay.
Delays in Youth Justice 29

Controlling Delay

Like all efforts to change individual and organizational behavior, 

interventions to control justice delays must contend with a wide 

range of obstacles. In general, two approaches are used to control 

case processing delays: 1) legal/professional, and 2) managerial. 

These approaches ensure speedy case handling by either mandating 

efficiency or re-engineering the court process to encourage efficiency. 

The research literature on court delay indicates that the effectiveness 

of legal or professional inducements to control delay may be limited. 

No prescriptive sanction will eliminate court delays if long processing 

times are necessary for the stability of the court. Legislation, case law, 

and professional standards may be useful, however, as a means of 

establishing the basic expectation that cases will move as quickly as 

possible through the court process. 

Legal/Professional Efforts to Control Delay 

The most basic expression of a direct inducement to control delay is the 

Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees any American 

citizen involved in a criminal prosecution the right to a “speedy and 

public trial” (Constitution of the United States, Amendment VI). 

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the right to a speedy trial is as 

“fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment” 

(Klopfer v. North Carolina, 1967). In Smith v. United States (1959), the 

U.S. Supreme Court explicitly affirmed a defendant’s right to speedy 

trial but did not specify what would constitute a violation of that right. 

In 1966, the U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) affirmed a defendant’s 

conviction on federal narcotics charges despite a delay of 14 months 

between indictment and trial (Hedgepeth v. United States, 1966). The 

ruling was based in part on the fact that much of the delay was caused 

by the defendant’s requests for continuances and that the resulting 

delay was not shown to be “prejudicial” to the defendant. In Solomon 

v. Mancusi (1969), the U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit) denied a 

habeas corpus petition from a New York appellant who claimed that 

his Sixth Amendment rights had been violated by a wait of nine months 

between arraignment and trial. The court concluded that a delay of nine 

months did not necessarily violate the defendant’s speedy trial rights 

because the defendant was unable to show prejudice from the delay, 

or to prove that the delay was caused by purposeful or “oppressive” 

actions of the district attorney. 
Delays in Youth Justice 30

The Supreme Court first attempted to establish a standard for the 

implementation of the Sixth Amendment’s speedy trial guarantee in 

Barker v. Wingo (1972). The Barker case involved a Kentucky prisoner 

who petitioned for habeas corpus as a result of a 5-year delay between 

arrest and trial. The Court found that the defendant’s right to speedy trial 

had not been violated because: 1) the defendant had not been seriously 

prejudiced by delay; and 2) the defendant had apparently not desired 

a speedy trial. The Barker Court also asserted that the right to speedy 

trial was “generically different” than any of the other rights of due 

process (Barker v. Wingo, 1972:519). Society has an interest in both 

the quality of the court process and the effectiveness of the outcome—

i.e., adequate protection from crime. In some cases, society’s desire for 

an effective outcome may conflict with a defendant’s desire for highquality process. Evaluating the speediness of the legal process requires 

a “balancing” of the rights of the defendant with those of society. The 

Court proposed four factors that should be considered in assessing 

Sixth Amendment violations (Barker v. Wingo, 1972:530). 

Known as the “Barker balancing test,” the four factors to be considered 

were: 

1) the length of delay;

2) the reason for delay; 

3) the defendant’s assertion of due process rights; and, 

4) the existence of prejudice to the defendant. 

The Barker Court acknowledged that there was “no constitutional 

basis for holding that the speedy trial right can be quantified into a 

specified number of days or months” (Barker v. Wingo, 1972:523). 

The Court argued that to establish a quantitative standard would be to 

engage in “legislative or rulemaking activity,” which was outside the 

proper scope of its authority (Barker v. Wingo, 1972:523). As a result 

of the Court’s reasoning in Barker, legislation and court rules have 

remained the predominant methods of controlling court delay through 

direct inducements. Statutes and rules have been used to limit the time 

courts may take to file charges, complete trials, and reach final case 

dispositions. Statutory time limits are seen as having more authority than 

court rules and often include dismissal sanctions for cases which are not 

disposed within the required deadlines. Elected officials, however, are 

often reluctant to implement mandatory dismissal sanctions and have 

usually granted courts considerable discretion in defining violations of 

case processing statutes. 

Evaluating the 

speediness of 

the legal process 

requires a 

“balancing” of 

the rights of the 

defendant with 

those of society.
Delays in Youth Justice 31

Two well-known efforts to reduce delay through legislation and 

administrative rules were implemented in the Federal court system 

during the 1970s: Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 

(406 U.S. 979, 1972) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (§§ 

3161–74, 1974). Both measures established national goals for reducing 

delays in the handling of criminal cases, encouraged local district 

courts to plan specific delay reduction strategies, devised procedures 

to monitor compliance by the local courts, and provided incentives for 

the courts to establish quantitative objectives for increasing the speed 

of their criminal case dispositions (Frase, 1976; Garner, 1987). 

Rule 50(b) was developed by the Federal judiciary. It provided incentives 

for Federal courts to reduce case delays but allowed considerable 

discretion in the time standards that individual courts could adopt. The 

Rule was to be fully implemented following a planning process that 

began in 1973 in each of the Federal district courts. The planning process 

was negated, however, by the passage of the Federal Speedy Trial Act 

of 1974, which was passed by Congress despite the opposition of the 

Federal judiciary and the Department of Justice (Garner, 1987:230). 

The Speedy Trial Act mandated a single time standard for all Federal 

courts—criminal cases were to reach final disposition within 100 days 

of arrest. The most contentious aspect of the Act was the provision that 

failure to meet the 100-day time limit would result in case dismissal. 

Faced with widespread concern about dismissals, Congress later 

allowed the courts to exclude certain periods from the calculation of 

disposition time, gave them authority to waive the standards when 

necessary to meet the “ends of justice,” and permitted dismissal without 

prejudice thereby allowing defendants to be re-indicted on the same 

charges. The extent of the exceptions led one observer to describe the 

Speedy Trial Act as a “flexible restraint” on case processing time in the 

Federal courts (Partridge, 1980:34). 

Speedy trial controls have also been widely used in state courts, 

either through legislation, administrative rules, or both (Trotter and 

Cooper, 1982). Researchers found mixed support for the effectiveness 

of administrative and legislative controls, both in the Federal system 

(Bridges, 1982; Garner, 1987) and in State courts (Grau and Sheskin, 

1982; Marvell and Luskin, 1991). Legislation and court rules cannot 

alter the reality that participants in the court process may “need” a 

certain degree of delay (Misner, 1979). 

Legislation 

and court rules 

cannot alter 

the reality that 

participants in 

the court process 

may “need” a 

certain degree of 

delay. 
Delays in Youth Justice 32

Another common method of controlling case processing delays is 

the adoption of professional standards and guidelines. Issued by 

organizations such as the American Bar Association and the Conference 

of State Court Administrators, professional standards derive their 

authority from consensus and voluntary compliance rather than the 

threat of legal sanctions. By themselves, professional standards may not 

influence the behavior of court actors to a great extent. Standards can be 

effective, however, in establishing administrative goals. By comparing 

their case handling time with nationally recognized standards, State 

and local courts can assess the adequacy of their case processing 

system and identify areas in need of improvement. The standards most 

familiar to U.S. court professionals are the guidelines developed by the 

American Bar Association’s National Conference of State Trial Judges 

(National Conference, 1985; Lawyers Conference Task Force, 1986). 

The ABA standards include separate provisions for civil and criminal 

cases, as well as separate standards for felonies and misdemeanors. In 

Standard 2.52, the ABA recommended that courts conclude 90% of all 

felony cases within 120 days of arrest, 98% within 180 days, and 100% 

within one year. 

Together, standards, rules, and legislation reinforce a commitment to 

reducing unnecessary case delays, provide clear goals for courts wishing 

to reduce delays, and often facilitate the development of administrative 

systems for tracking case processing time (Mahoney et al., 1988:63; 

Goerdt et al., 1989:78). The adoption of explicit time goals may help to 

reduce case delays because in the close, personal culture of a local court 

system, the existence of formal goals encourages court participants to 

place a higher value on administrative conformity (Luskin and Luskin, 

1987:215). 

Managerial Efforts to Control Delay 

Direct inducements such as case law, statutes, rules, and standards will 

never eliminate delay. In order to control delay more effectively, it is 

necessary to confront the organizational arrangements that generate 

delay. Mahoney and his colleagues found that State trial courts varied 

considerably in their ability to improve efficiency and speed (Mahoney 

et al., 1988:6). Some courts in the study were able to improve their 

case processing speed significantly, while others were unable to 

change. Importantly, these courts were not differentiated by the factors 

typically thought to cause delay, such as caseload size, offense severity, 

or court resources. The successful courts did, however, share a number 

of characteristics. 
Delays in Youth Justice 33

In general, Mahoney and his colleagues found that the most successful 

courts:

■ had strong judicial leadership with active participation of State 

and local court officials;

■ had clear and widely shared goals for keeping case processing 

times to a reasonable minimum;

■ organized to generate and use timely and accurate information 

about the speed of case processing;

■ maintained open channels of communication among major court 

actors; and 

■ made use of effective management techniques. 

Researchers are quick to caution that reducing court delays through 

management intervention sounds much easier than it is. Management 

research has sometimes failed to understand the essentially nonbureaucratic nature of courts and the implications that this has for 

traditional management techniques (Sarat, 1978). Courts are not even 

organizations in the conventional sense. Most importantly, courts lack 

a clear, unitary, hierarchical structure (Eisenstein and Jacob, 1977; 

Sarat, 1978). Rather, they are composed of a number of relatively 

equal and competing clusters of actors—judges, prosecutors, defense 

attorneys, etc. Each cluster of actors has its own reward structure and 

chain of authority. Often, there is not even a framework of shared goals 

or values. The only value shared by all participants in the court process 

may be that all of them would prefer not to appear in court if at all 

possible (Sarat, 1978). 

Judges, administrators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and clerks 

should be seen as “stake holders” with an abiding interest in the court 

process but with different goals and varying investments in processing 

efficiency. In some cases, delay may frustrate their interests. In other 

cases, delay may be essential for them to achieve other important goals, 

such as controlling the timing of particular case events or managing 

the volume of their total workload. At times, these other goals may be 

far more critical to various actors than whether or not an individual 

case is delayed. Procedural reforms that address court functions in 

isolation (continuances, pretrial diversion, calendaring systems, etc.) 

will inevitably fail if they are not implemented with an acute awareness 

of how each of the actors in the court system will respond. In order 

to address the true origins of delay, therefore, it is often necessary to 

approach case processing from an inter-organizational perspective. 

Judges, 

administrators, 

prosecutors, 

defense 

attorneys, and 

clerks should be 

seen as “stake 

holders” with an 

abiding interest 

in the court 

process but with 

different goals 

and varying 

investments 

in processing 

efficiency. 
Delays in Youth Justice 34

Beginning in the 1970s, judges and court administrators came to believe 

that the best method of reducing delay was to implement aggressive “case 

flow management” systems that could reverse the inter-organizational 

incentives maintaining delay. Case flow management refers to:

[The] supervision or management of the time and events 

involved in the movement of a case through the court system 

from the point of initiation to disposition, regardless of the 

type of disposition (Solomon and Somerlot, 1987:3). 

Case flow management is a method of making the occurrence of court 

events and the intervals between them more predictable and regulated. 

Prior to the development of case flow management systems, the 

progress of a court case was governed by the independent efforts of 

various individuals, each seeking to meet his or her own organizational 

and personal needs by influencing the timing of continuances, pretrial 

conferences, hearings, etc. Reducing delay was not in the self-interest 

of any single person or group, and it was often not a part of anyone’s 

formal job responsibilities (Flanders, 1980). 

Case flow management represents a shift in thinking about the 

responsibility for case progress. It relies on the active oversight of each 

case event by a judge and/or court administrator, as well as frequent 

and direct consultation between court managers, judges, and lawyers. 

An effective case flow management system essentially re-designs the 

entire case handling process to facilitate speedy dispositions and to 

make efficiency a part of everyone’s job. 

One of the strongest findings of the National Center for State Courts’ 

Pretrial Delay Project was that a court is less likely to experience backlogs 

and delay if it has an effective case flow management system in place 

(Church et al., 1978). This finding applied to both civil and criminal 

courts, although case flow management systems were more common 

in criminal courts when the Pretrial Delay Project was conducted. At 

that time, court control over the pace of litigation was a relatively new 

concept for civil courts. In most of the courts studied by the project, 

attorneys controlled the pace of civil case processing. Criminal courts, 

on the other hand, almost always had formal time limits and a system 

for monitoring compliance. Prosecutors may have played a role in the 

timing of case filing, but no criminal court in the study gave attorneys 

as much discretion over the speed of case processing as did the civil 

courts. The Pretrial Delay researchers believed that this difference was 

at least partly responsible for the fact that delays were nearly always 

more extensive in the civil courts. 
Delays in Youth Justice 35

Another approach to controlling court delays is the use of monetary 

incentives to encourage more efficient case handling. One such effort, 

known as the Speedy Disposition Program (SDP), was implemented in 

New York City during the early 1980s (Heumann and Church, 1990; 

Church and Heumann, 1992). The SDP provided prosecutors’ offices in 

four New York boroughs with an opportunity to share several million 

dollars of “incentive” funds if they acted successfully to reduce the 

average age of their pending criminal cases. 

The evaluation of the SDP suggested that the use of financial incentives 

had little long-term effects on the average length of time that cases 

awaited disposition. Results were mixed, however, and the researchers 

saw enough impact in some sites to indicate that the approach was 

worth further experimentation. The SDP effort may have fallen short of 

expectations because New York prosecutors were provided with more 

than adequate resources by the City and did not respond strongly to the 

promise of new funds. In more appropriate contexts, however, the use 

of direct financial incentives to improve efficiency may be an effective 

method of controlling delay. 
Delays in Youth Justice 36

Controlling Juvenile

Court Delay

Speedy processing of juvenile cases is important for at least two 

reasons. First, in order to maximize the impact upon the juvenile that he 

has been caught in a criminal act, that he will be held accountable for 

what he has done, and that there will be consequences for his actions, 

it is important that the case be resolved quickly. If the case drags on 

for too long, the impact of the message is diluted, either because the 

juvenile has been subsequently arrested for other offenses and ‘loses 

track’ of just what it is that he is being prosecuted for or because the 

juvenile has not engaged in any further delinquent acts and feels that 

any consequences for the past offense are unfair. Speedy processing 

is also important because excessive delay is obviously unfair and 

damaging to victims (Shine and Price, 1992:115). 

Efforts to reduce court delay have been widespread for several decades 

in the form of legislation, case law, administrative rules, organizational 

change, and policy interventions. Yet, research about these efforts has 

been conducted entirely in criminal and civil courts. Juvenile court 

delays have not been a prominent concern among researchers, court 

professionals, or policy makers. Little knowledge is available on the 

causes and consequences of delayed delinquency cases, and virtually 

no literature exists on the relative effectiveness of the various delay 

reduction techniques in juvenile courts. The following section reviews 

the extent of administrative, legislative, and judicial efforts to affect the 

timing of delinquency case processing in juvenile courts. 

Constitutional Provisions 

Juveniles have no federal constitutional right to a speedy trial. Before 

the 1960s, a youth appearing before a juvenile court had few rights in 

general. Since the official purpose of juvenile court proceedings was to 

“help” juveniles and not to establish guilt and administer punishment, 

juvenile courts were not considered to be trial courts. Thus, a youth 

involved in a delinquency proceeding was not considered to be at 

risk of criminal prosecution and did not require formal due process 

protections. These assumptions began to change during the 1960s as 

juvenile courts were required to provide procedural protections for 

juveniles. 
Delays in Youth Justice 37

The U.S. Supreme Court first granted limited procedural rights to 

juveniles in Kent v. United States (1966). Ruling against the District of 

Columbia’s arbitrary and poorly documented procedures for transferring 

juveniles to the criminal court, the Supreme Court required transfer 

hearings to incorporate basic standards of due process, orderliness, and 

fair treatment. Kent challenged the fundamental premise that juvenile 

court proceedings were outside the sphere of criminal prosecution. The 

Supreme Court had previously interpreted the Equal Protection Clause 

to suggest that classes of people could receive lesser due process if a 

“compensating benefit” came with this diminished protection (Bernard, 

1992:113). In theory, the juvenile court provided such a compensating 

benefit since its concern was for the best interests of juveniles rather 

than guilt or innocence. The Kent decision referred to evidence that this 

compensating benefit did not exist in reality, and while the Court did 

not equate juvenile court hearings with criminal trials, it did suggest 

that juvenile court proceedings had to provide at least the “essentials” 

of due process. These essentials were enumerated by the Court in its 

next important juvenile procedure case. 

The case most responsible for changing the American juvenile justice 

system was In re Gault (1967). Gerald Gault was an Arizona youth 

who had been incarcerated for placing an obscene telephone call. His 

appeal asked the Supreme Court to consider whether the juvenile court 

process had violated several of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights—

counsel, notice of charges, confrontation of witnesses, the privilege 

against self- incrimination, and the right to a transcript and appellate 

review. The Gault Court ruled that in any juvenile court proceeding 

where commitment to an institution is a possible outcome, juveniles 

should have the right to notice and to counsel, to confront and crossexamine witnesses, and to the privilege against self-incrimination. The 

Court did not rule on a juvenile’s right to appellate review or transcripts, 

but it encouraged States to provide those rights. 

The Supreme Court based its ruling on the fact that Gault had been 

punished by the juvenile court rather than helped. The Court also 

rejected the doctrine of parens patriae as the founding principle of 

juvenile justice, describing the concept as “murky” and of “dubious” 

historical relevance, and concluded that the process used to incarcerate 

Gault violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Extending the reasoning that first appeared in Kent, the Supreme Court 

asserted that juveniles need not give up their Fourteenth Amendment 

rights in order to derive the benefits of their status as juveniles—i.e., 

the greater concern for the well-being supposedly inherent in juvenile 

Little knowledge 

is available on 

the causes and 

consequences 

of delayed 

delinquency 

cases, and 

virtually no 

literature exists 

on the relative 

effectiveness 

of the various 

delay reduction 

techniques in 

juvenile courts. 
Delays in Youth Justice 38

court proceedings. Furthermore, the Court suggested the aspects of due 

process it considered essential for juvenile court proceedings: “fairness, 

impartiality and orderliness” (In re Gault, 1967:19). 

The Supreme Court soon demanded more of juvenile court proceedings. 

In a 1970 decision, In re Winship, the Court ruled that the “preponderance 

of evidence” standard used for delinquency adjudications in New York 

violated the due process promised in the Kent and Gault cases (In re 

Winship, 1970). The Winship case involved an adjudication based 

upon evidence that the juvenile court judge openly admitted would not 

have met a “reasonable doubt” standard. Upon appeal, the Supreme 

Court ruled that the reasonable doubt standard should be required in 

all delinquency adjudications. The Court rejected the opinion of the 

New York appellate court which had upheld the adjudication arguing 

that juvenile courts were not required to operate on the same standards 

as adult courts because they were designed to save rather than punish. 

Limiting Due Process for Juveniles 

The Winship decision appeared to signal the end of the Supreme Court’s 

expansion of procedural rights for juveniles. In fact, Justices Stewart 

and Burger offered a dissent to the Winship decision that foreshadowed 

the future direction of the Court in matters of juvenile due process 

rights (Bernard, 1992). They re-asserted that the intent of juvenile 

court proceedings was still to help juveniles rather than to punish. They 

conceded that while actual practices were sometimes inconsistent with 

this rehabilitative intention, the solution to such failures was not to 

be found in Kent and Gault, which they believed would eventually 

undermine the legal and philosophical bases of juvenile justice. Stewart 

and Burger favored a continued distinction between adult and juvenile 

court procedures so as to preserve the special treatment accorded young 

people. 

In its next significant juvenile law case, the Supreme Court ruled 

that the Due Process Clause did not require jury trials in juvenile 

court (McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 1971). In the Court’s view, Gault 

and Winship had already enhanced the accuracy of the juvenile court 

fact finding process. Juries would add little to the factual quality of 

the process and would be disruptive to the informal atmosphere of the 

juvenile court, tending to make it more adversarial. McKeiver appeared 

to signal the Court’s retreat from the direction established by Gault, 

Kent, and Winship. Thus, after several dramatic cases that granted 

juveniles greater due process protections, the Supreme Court stopped 
Delays in Youth Justice 39

short, refusing to grant juveniles the right to jury trial, appellate review, 

or transcripts of court proceedings. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has never been asked to rule on a right to 

speedy trial for juveniles. However, the Gault Court was careful to 

characterize juvenile court proceedings as being accountable only to 

the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and specifically 

not within the purview of the Sixth Amendment (Sanborn, 1993:232). 

Furthermore, during the 1970s and 1980s, the Court continued its 

attempts to resuscitate the parens patriae philosophy of juvenile justice 

(see, for example, Schall v. Martin, 1984). To date, the Supreme Court 

has not indicated any new willingness to expand due process for 

juveniles, including the right to speedy trial. 

Case Law and Juvenile Court Processing Time 

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has not applied all constitutional 

due process protections to juvenile court proceedings, some States 

have interpreted the Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment in 

Gault and Winship to suggest at least the possibility of other rights for 

juveniles—including the right to speedy trial (Choper, 1984). Courts 

in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, 

and Washington extend some form of speedy trial rights to juveniles. 

■ The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in a 1983 case that 

juvenile court adjudications should be dismissed if the court 

failed to meet the statutory deadline for adjudication and the 

delay was not due to actions of defense counsel (In re Eric C., 

1983). 

■ In a 1985 case, the Appellate Court of Illinois (First District, 

Second Division) vacated the adjudications of four juveniles 

whose due process rights were found to have been violated by 

a delay of more than 700 days between their arraignment and 

adjudicatory hearing (Illinois v. A.J., T.M., L.R. and J.R., 1985). 

■ In 1987, the adjudication of a Minnesota juvenile was reversed 

and the delinquency petition dismissed with prejudice by the 

State Court of Appeals (In re J.D.P., 1987). The court held 

that the juvenile’s right to speedy trial had been violated when 

prosecutors failed to bring the case to trial within 60 days as 

required by Minnesota statute. 

■ The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of burglary 

and theft charges against a juvenile because the State failed to 

prosecute the case for more than one year. The court’s opinion 

in the case was based on the speedy trial rules for juveniles 

provided in Arkansas statute (Arkansas v. McCann, 1993). 

The U.S. 

Supreme Court 

has never been 

asked to rule 

on a right to 

speedy trial for 

juveniles. 
Delays in Youth Justice 40

Appellate courts have dismissed other delinquency proceedings due to 

violations of speedy trial statutes in Washington (State of Washington 

v. Smith, 1987); State of Washington v. Day, 1987; State of Washington 

v. Adamski, 1988) and New York (In re Oranchank, 1983; In re J.V., 

1985; In re Steven C., 1985; In re Juan V., 1990; In re Robert S., 1991; 

In re Jessie C., 1992; In re Lydell J. and Taseem D., 1992; In re Nicole 

D., 1992; In re James H., 1993; In re Shannon FF, 1993; In re Jose R., 

1993). 

In the State of Florida, appellate courts have dismissed delinquency 

proceedings against juveniles for a large number of reasons related to 

speedy trial. Among these reasons are: 

■ a delay of more than one year between arrest and adjudication 

(Shanks v. Cianca, 1986); 

■ failure to properly state the reasons for extending the statutory 

deadline for speedy trial (J.J.S. v. Florida, 1983); 

■ failure to provide proper notice of a hearing, which resulted in an 

adjudicatory hearing being delayed for more than 90 days after 

arrest (In re M.A., 1986); 

■ filing motions to extend a speedy trial period after the expiration 

of the speedy trial deadline (D.A.L. v. Florida, 1984; J.T. v. 

Florida, 1992); 

■ misplacement of a case file by the clerk’s office, which did 

not constitute an “exceptional circumstance” for extending a 

statutory speedy trial period (T.C. v. Florida, 1989); and 

■ failure to respond for more than 21 days to a juvenile’s motion 

for dismissal due to a violation of speedy trial rights (E.R. v. 

Florida, 1993). 

Yet, other courts have either explicitly denied speedy trial rights to 

juveniles or severely limited their application. In 1985, the Appellate 

Court of Illinois (First District, Fifth Division) denied the appeal of a 

delinquent juvenile who claimed that the Cook County Juvenile Court 

violated his Sixth Amendment rights when an adjudicatory hearing was 

not held within 30 days as required by statute (Illinois v. M.A., 1985). 

The appellate court found that while the lower court had refused to 

comply with an Illinois statute that called for the dismissal of delayed 

cases, this refusal did not violate the juvenile’s rights because juvenile 

court proceedings were thought to be separate and distinct from 

criminal court proceedings. Thus, although the juvenile court had in 

fact violated the statutory requirement that a fact-finding hearing be 

held within 30 days, the court did not interpret this violation as granting 

the juvenile an absolute right to dismissal of the proceedings. 
Delays in Youth Justice 41

The right to a speedy trial was clearly denied to juveniles in the State 

of Kansas. In a 1987 case, the Court of Appeals of Kansas heard the 

case of a delinquent minor whose adjudication by a magistrate court 

had been upheld by a County District Court (In re T.K., 1987). The 

minor appealed for dismissal on the grounds that the District Court 

had not held de novo review in a timely manner (i.e., within 30 days as 

specified in the Kansas statute). In affirming the lower court’s decision, 

the Court of Appeals held that juveniles did not have a constitutional 

right to speedy trial in proceedings conducted under the Kansas juvenile 

offenders code, and that the statutory requirement of de novo review 

within 30 days was not intended as a codification of the right to speedy 

trial. Thus, the 30-day requirement was not mandatory and juveniles 

were not entitled to a speedy-trial dismissal based upon failure to meet 

this standard. 

Another case before the Florida Supreme Court involved the question 

of whether a juvenile would be denied a speedy trial if his or her 

adjudication occurred after the 90-day period mandated by Florida 

statute (R.J.A. v. Foster, 1992). Florida statute required that juvenile 

court adjudications taking more than 90 days be dismissed with 

prejudice. State court rules, however, provided an additional 10-day 

“grace period” for holding adjudication hearings. The Florida Supreme 

Court ruled narrowly that a juvenile court’s use of the 10-day grace 

period did not violate juveniles’ right to speedy trial because speedytrial rights were procedural rather than substantive and fell within the 

court’s discretion. The opinion was based on the Sixth Amendment 

“balancing” analysis contained in Barker v. Wingo in which courts were 

given the discretion to determine the amount of delay that constitutes 

a violation of speedy trial (Dale, 1992). The Florida court did affirm, 

however, that the State’s juvenile courts have an obligation to process 

delinquency cases in a timely fashion or face the risk of dismissal. 

During recent decades, courts in a few States have supported time 

limitations for juvenile court proceedings. Speedy trial mandates have 

been endorsed at least in part by courts in the States of Arkansas, 

Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and Washington. In 

some cases, however, a juvenile’s right to speedy trial has been defined 

rather narrowly. Speedy trial rights have been explicitly denied to 

juveniles in other cases (e.g., Illinois, and Kansas). It would appear 

that the most common mechanisms for ensuring speedy case handling 

in juvenile courts will continue to be rules, legislation, and professional 

standards rather than constitutional interpretation.

It would appear 

that the most 

common 

mechanisms for 

ensuring speedy 

case handling in 

juvenile courts 

will continue 

to be rules, 

legislation, and 

professional 

standards 

rather than 

constitutional 

interpretation. 
Delays in Youth Justice 42

Legislation and Rules in the Juvenile Court 

Placing administrative or legislative constraints on the timing of 

delinquency case processing is a relatively recent practice, but 

states have increasingly turned to these mechanisms to increase the 

timeliness of their juvenile justice systems. A search of state statutes, 

procedural rules, and court guidelines reveals that nearly all states have 

implemented some form of juvenile case processing time standards 

(Table 1). As of 2008, forty-five states and the District of Columbia had 

some form of time standards for delinquency case processing. Of these 

states, thirty-seven applied standards to disposition time, while thirtythree applied standards to the timing of delinquency adjudications 

(i.e., fact-finding). In more than half the jurisdictions, however, such 

standards were not mandatory. 

The extent of legislative or administrative controls on delinquency 

case processing time has always varied greatly (Szymanski, 1994). 

Several states set maximum allowable times between the initial filing 

of a petition and the adjudication hearing (60 days in Maryland, 30 

days in North Carolina). More commonly, states set the maximum 

number of days allowed between the filing of delinquency charges and 

adjudication according to whether or not a youth is detained pending 

court proceedings. For example, in cases where a youth is held in 

detention, Arizona establishes a limit of 46 days between the filing of 

charges and the adjudication hearing. In non-detention cases, however, 

Arizona allows an adjudication hearing to be held as late as 90 days 

after the filing of charges. 

Some jurisdictions place limits on the timing of adjudication based upon 

the detention hearing itself. In Illinois, for example, when delinquent 

youth are placed in detention, they must be adjudicated within 10 days 

of the detention hearing. West Virginia has a similar provision, but 

courts in that state have up to 30 days to hold an adjudication hearing 

following the order to detain a youth. 

Many states place time limits on juvenile court dispositional hearings. 

In states such as Alabama and Alaska, court deadlines for delinquency 

dispositions are triggered by the filing of delinquency petitions. Alabama 

mandates that 80 percent of delinquency matters must reach disposition 

within 120 days of petitioning, and all matters must reach disposition 

within 270 days. Alaska has similar provisions for disposition, requiring 

that 75 percent of delinquency cases be completed within 75 days, 90 

percent within 120 days, and 98 percent within 180 days. 
Delays in Youth Justice 43

Table 1: Adjudication and disposition time standards as reflected in court rules 

and state statutes.

State Mandatory Adjudication Disposition

Alabama  80% in 120 days a

100% in 270 days a

Alaska  75% in 75 days a

 90% in 120 days a

 98% in 180 days a

Arizona 46 days (detained) a

 90 days (not detained) a

 30 days (detained) c

 45 days (not detained) c

Arkansas  100% in 14 days (detained) a 100% in 14 days (detained) c

California 15 days (detained) a

 30 days (not detained) a

100% in 10 days (detained) c

100% in 45 days (not detained) c

Colorado 100% in 90 days a 100% in 45 days c

Delaware  90% in 45 days a

100% in 90 days a

District of 

Columbia

 100% in 45-60 days (detained) a

 70% in 120 days (not detained) a

 90% in 180 days (not detained) a

 98% in 270 days (not detained) a

Florida 100% in 21 days (detained) a

100% in 90 days (not detained) a

Georgia 10 days (detained) a

 60 days (not detained) a

Hawaii 100% in 90 days a

Idaho 45 days (detained) b

 90 days (not detained) e

Illinois  10 days (detained) b

120 days (not detained) a

Indiana 20 days (detained) a

 60 days (not detained) a

Iowa 100% in 15 days (detained) a

100% in 30 days (not detained) a

100% in 30 days (detained) c

100% in 40 days (not detained) c

Kansas 30 days (not detained) a

Louisiana 30 days c

Maine 14 days c

Maryland 60 days a 30 days c

Massachusetts  100% in 21 days (detained) a

100% in 30 days (not detained) a

100% in 60 days (jury cases) a

100% in 180 days (non-jury cases) b

100% in 240 days (jury cases) b

Michigan  90% in 84 days (detained) a

100% in 98 days (detained) a

 75% in 119 days (not detained) a

 90% in 180 days (not detained) a

100% in 210 days (note detained) a

 75% in 119 days (not detained) a

Minnesota  90% in 90 days a

 97% in 150 days a

 99% in 365 days a

 15 days (detained) c

 45 days (not detained) c

(Continued)
Delays in Youth Justice 44

Table 1 (continued)

State Mandatory Adjudication Disposition

Mississippi 100% in 21 days (detained) c

100% in 90 days (not detained) c

100% in 14 days c

Missouri 60 days (protective custody) d 60 days (informal adjustment) a

 90 days (protective custody) d

Nebraska 100% in 180 days a 100% in 60 days c

Nevada 60 days a

New Hampshire  21 days (detained) a

 30 days (not detained) a

 21 days (detained) c

 30 days (not detained) c

New Jersey  30 days (detained) a 100% in 90 days c

New Mexico  30 days (detained) a

 90 days (not detained) a

New York  100% in 180 days a

North Carolina 30 days a 95% in 60 days (misdemeanor) c

 95% in 90 days (felony) c

100% in 90 days (misdemeanor) c

100% in 120 days (felony) c

North Dakota 120 days (detained) d

120 days (not detained) a

Ohio  100% in 90 to 365 days a

Oregon 100% in 15 days (detained) a

100% in 30 days (not detained) a

Pennsylvania  15 days (detained) a

 90 days (not detained) a

 20 days (detained) c

 60 days (not detained) c

Rhode Island 100% in 180 days a

South Carolina 100% in 270 days a

Tennessee  30 days (detained) a

 90 days (not detained) a

 15 days (detained) c

 90 days (not detained) c

Texas 100% in 10 days (detained) a

100% in 30 days (not detained) a

100% in 15 days c

Utah  60 days a 30 days c

Vermont 15 days (detained) a 15 to 30 days c

Virginia  21 days (detained) a

120 days (not detained) a

 30 days (detained) c

Washington 14 days (detained) c

 21 days (not detained) c

West Virginia  100% in 30 days b 100% in 45 days c

Wisconsin 20 days (detained) a

 30 days (not detained) a

 10 days (detained) c

 30 days (not detained) c

Wyoming  60 to 90 days a 60 days c

 Triggering Events: a filing of petition/complaint c adjudication e admit/deny hearing

b detention hearing d detention

Source: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Search of published statutes and administrative rules as applied to 

delinquency matters. Rules and statutes are those applying at the state level only; local provisions are not included.
Delays in Youth Justice 45

Twenty-four States limit the time between adjudicatory and dispositional 

hearings. Colorado, for example, allows no more than 45 days to elapse 

between adjudication and disposition in delinquency cases. Louisiana 

allows 30 days between adjudication and disposition, while Maine and 

Mississippi set the same time limit at 14 days, and Texas allows just 

15 days. A number of states restrict the time between adjudication and 

disposition for detained juveniles only (e.g., 14 days in Arkansas, 30 

days in Virginia). Washington and New Hampshire are two of the most 

aggressive states in controlling pre-dispositional delays. Dispositional 

hearings in Washington are required within 21 days even for nondetained juveniles, while New Hampshire allows just 30 days for nondetained juveniles to reach their dispositional hearing. 

Time Standards in Juvenile Court 

Since the 1970s, several sets of juvenile justice standards have been 

issued by groups representing federal agencies or national professional 

associations (Table 2). One of the earliest of these standard-setting 

groups was the Joint Commission on Juvenile Justice Standards, an 

effort by the Institute of Judicial Administration and the American 

Bar Association (IJA/ABA, 1980). The IJA/ABA project began its 

work in 1971 and issued its final recommendations in 23 separate 

volumes published between 1977 and 1980. Each volume of the 

IJA/ABA standards addressed a separate topic of interest (e.g., court 

administration, prosecution, probation, adjudication, disposition, and 

appeal). 

Other prominent juvenile justice standards include those of the 

National Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (NAC), which was established in 1974 by the Juvenile 

Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (§207, P.L. 93-415). Congress 

directed the NAC to develop general standards for the administration 

of juvenile justice. The NAC’s final report was published in 1980 and 

contained standards for a wide range of juvenile justice functions, 

including prevention programs, court administration, adjudication, and 

supervision (OJJDP, 1980). 

The standards developed by these groups addressed case processing 

time and juvenile court delay in a number of ways. For example, 

the IJA/ABA Joint Commission asserted that time limits on juvenile 

court case handling were necessary to combat the negative effects of 

unwanted court delays: 
Delays in Youth Justice 46

Delay in the processing, adjudication, and disposition of 

criminal and juvenile cases compounds the disadvantages of 

detention, increases the risks of nonappearance and antisocial 

conduct if the juvenile is released, and is harmful to the 

interests both of the accused and the community (IJA/ABA, 

1980a:11). 

In Standard 7.1, the IJA/ABA Commission declared that “juvenile court 

cases should always be processed without unnecessary delay” in order 

to “effectuate the right of juveniles to a speedy resolution of disputes 

involving them” and to be consistent with the “public interest in prompt 

disposition of such disputes” (IJA/ABA, 1980b:21). Case processing 

time should be monitored especially closely, according to the IJA/

ABA, in cases involving “young, immature, and emotionally troubled 

juveniles,” “juveniles who are detained or otherwise removed from 

their usual home environment,” and “juveniles whose pretrial liberty 

appears to present unusual risks to themselves or the community” (IJA/

ABA, 1980b:21). 

The IJA/ABA standards advanced the following time limits for 

specific stages of the juvenile justice process and recommended that 

Table 2: Time limitations in juvenile proceedings as 

suggested by professional standards.

Detained Juveniles

Maximum 

days from 

referral to 

adjudication

Maximum 

days from 

adjudication 

to disposition

Total days 

from referral to 

disposition

IJA/ABA (1977–80) 15 15 30

NAC/OJJDP (1980) 18 15 33

ABA Std. 252 (1984) 15a 15 30a

NDAA Std. 19.2 (1989) 30 30 60

NCJFCJ/OJJDP (2005) 10c 10 20

Released Juveniles

IJA/ABA (1977–80) 30 30 60

NAC/OJJDP (1980) 65 15 80

ABA Std. 252 (1984) 30b 15 45b

NDAA Std. 19.2 (1989) 60 30 90

NCJFCJ/OJJDP (2005) 20c 20 40

a. Deadline triggered by detention admission. 

b. Deadline triggered by filing of delinquency petition. 

c. Deadline triggered by initial hearing. 
Delays in Youth Justice 47

delinquency cases be dismissed with prejudice when these time limits 

were exceeded (IJA/ABA, 1980a:13): 

■ 2 hours between police referral and the decision to detain; 

■ 24 hours between detention and a petition justifying further 

detention; 

■ 24 hours between a detention petition and the detention hearing; 

■ 15 days between police referral and adjudication (if youth is 

detained); 

■ 30 days between police referral and adjudication (if youth is not 

detained); 

■ 15 days between adjudication and final disposition (if youth is 

detained); 

■ 30 days between adjudication and final disposition (if youth is 

not detained). 

In effect, the IJA/ABA standards suggested a maximum of 60 days from 

referral to disposition for non-detained cases, and 30 days in the case 

of detained juveniles. In Standard 3.3, the Joint Commission clarified 

that the time standard for adjudicatory hearings should apply to transfer 

hearings also (IJA/ABA, 1980c:32). Juvenile courts were to hold either 

adjudicatory or transfer hearings within 15 days for detained youth, 

and within 30 days for non-detained youth. 

Similar time limits were recommended by the National Advisory 

Committee for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The NAC 

recommended that in all “matters subject to the jurisdiction of the 

family court over delinquency, the following time limits should apply” 

(OJJDP, 1980:311). 

■ 24 hours between police referral and the report of an intake 

decision (if youth is detained); 

■ 30 days between police referral and the report of an intake 

decision (if youth is not detained); 

■ 24 hours between detention and the detention hearing; 

■ 2 days between the intake report and the filing of a petition by 

the prosecutor (if detained); 

■ 5 days between the intake report and the filing of a petition by 

the prosecutor (if not detained); 

■ 5 days between filing of the petition and the initial arraignment 

hearing; 

■ 15 days between filing of the petition and the adjudication 

hearing (if detained); 
Delays in Youth Justice 48

■ 30 days between filing of the petition and the adjudication 

hearing (if not detained); 

■ 15 days between adjudication and the final disposition hearing. 

The NAC standards suggested that the total time between police 

referral and court disposition should not exceed 80 days in cases of nondetained juveniles, and 33 days for detained cases. As recommended 

in the IJA/ABA standards, the NAC called for dismissal of the case 

if court processing extended beyond these maximums. However, the 

NAC permitted dismissal without prejudice, allowing prosecutors to 

re-file for adjudication on the same case. The NAC also suggested the 

use of sanctions for court officials when cases were delayed beyond the 

recommended time limits: 

When these time limits are not met, there should be authority 

to release a detained juvenile, to impose sanctions against 

the persons within the juvenile justice system responsible for 

the delay, and to dismiss the case with or without prejudice 

(OJJDP, 1980:311). 

The decision to impose sanctions, according to the NAC, should 

account for the possibility that excessive delays may have been caused 

by a “lack of sufficient resources” rather than “individual failures” 

(OJJDP, 1980:312). The NAC standards also recognized that there 

were situations when exceptions to the time limits could be granted. 

Extensions could be authorized in the following circumstances: 1) when 

important evidence or witnesses are unavailable to the prosecuting 

attorney during the prescribed time period even after reasonable 

efforts to secure them; and 2) when a continuance is requested by any 

party to the case and the judge finds that the “ends of justice” would 

be better served by a continuance than by “a speedy resolution of the 

case” (OJJDP, 1980:313). Even when necessary, extensions were not 

to exceed 30 days in cases involving detained juveniles, or 60 days in 

non-custody cases. 

The NAC standards also listed a number of circumstances in which it 

would be appropriate to exclude certain periods of time in calculating 

elapsed processing time: 

Any period of delay caused by the absence, incompetency, 

or physical incapacity of the respondent; consideration of a 

motion for change of venue, a motion for transfer to a court 

of general jurisdiction pursuant to Standard 3.116, or an 

extradition request; a diagnostic examination ordered by the 

family court and completed within the time specified in the 
Delays in Youth Justice 49

order; or an interlocutory appeal; and a reasonable period 

of delay caused by joinder of the case with that of another 

person for whom the time limits have not expired, should not 

be included in the computation of the prescribed time periods 

(OJJDP, 1980:313). 

Following the release of the IJA/ABA and NAC standards, other 

national groups issued juvenile justice standards. In their standards 

for State trial courts, the ABA’s National Conference of State Trial 

Judges included Standards 2.50 through 2.56, known as the “Standards 

Relating to Court Delay Reduction” (National Conference, 1985; 

Lawyers Conference Task Force, 1986). In Standard 2.52 on “timely 

disposition,” the ABA explicitly addressed the issue of time standards 

for delinquency cases (National Conference, 1985:12). The ABA 

standards recommended that: 

■ Detention hearings should be held within 24 hours of a juvenile’s 

admission to a detention facility. 

■ Adjudicatory (or transfer) hearings should be held within 15 days 

of admission to detention for juveniles in custody, and within 

30 days following the filing of a delinquency petition for noncustody cases. 

■ Disposition hearings should be held no later than 15 days 

following the adjudicatory hearing. 

The National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) issued its own 

standards for the handling of delinquency cases. In 1987, the Juvenile 

Justice Committee of the NDAA began an effort to revise Prosecution 

Standard 19.2, which had been originally adopted by the NDAA in 1977 

(Shine and Price, 1992). The revised standards were issued in 1989 and 

addressed a wide range of issues related to the prosecution of juvenile 

cases—e.g., case screening, criteria for diversion, determining legal 

sufficiency, uncontested cases and the use of plea agreements, transfer 

or certification to adult court, adjudication, and disposition (Shine and 

Price, 1992:120–132). The NDAA recommended the following time 

limits for the processing of juvenile delinquency cases: 

■ Prosecutors should screen cases for legal sufficiency within 24 

hours of police referral if the youth is in detention and within 7 

days if the youth is not detained. 

■ Intake decisions (whether to divert, file a formal petition, or 

transfer) should be made within 3 days of police referral if a 

youth is detained, and within 10 days if not detained. 

■ Adjudicatory hearings should be held within 30 days of police 

referral for detained juveniles, and within 60 days for nondetained juveniles. 
Delays in Youth Justice 50

■ Disposition hearings should be held within 30 days of the 

adjudicatory hearing. 

Altogether, the NDAA standards suggested a maximum time of 60 

days between police referral and disposition in cases where a youth 

is detained, or 90 days in non-detained cases. The NDAA recognized, 

however, that the time limits were “models” and that they may be 

exceeded in particularly complex cases, such as when the discovery 

process requires more time, or the prosecutor must review a lengthy 

social history or psychological evaluation before making a decision 

to transfer a case for criminal prosecution. In general, the provisions 

of NDAA’s Standard 19.2 mirrored the juvenile justice guidelines 

developed by earlier standard-setting associations. The time limits 

recommended in the NDAA standards, however, were more lenient 

than those published by the IJA/ABA, NAC, and ABA. The NDAA’s 

maximum of 60 days between referral and disposition in detention 

cases was twice the 30-day maximum recommended by the IJA/ABA 

standards and the ABA’s Standard 252, and nearly double the limit of 

33 days recommended in the NAC standards. The NDAA’s time limit 

for non-custody cases (90 days from referral to disposition) was also 

the longest of all the standard-setting groups. 

In 2005, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court 

Judges (NCJFCJ) released its Juvenile Delinquency Guidelines, 

a comprehensive guide to improving juvenile court practice. The 

NCJFCJ included timeliness as one of sixteen key principles that form 

the foundation for juvenile delinquency courts. The NCJFCJ made two 

arguments for setting time limitations in juvenile court proceedings:

A youth with delayed cognitive development who must wait 

a significant period of time between offense and consequence 

may not be able to sufficiently connect the two events. As a 

result, the intended lesson of consequences and accountability 

is lost and the consequences will not likely change future 

behavior (NCJFCJ, 2005:43).

If the juvenile justice process is not timely, many youth will 

experience prolonged uncertainty. Prolonged uncertainty can 

increase anxiety. Increased anxiety can negatively impact 

trust and a sense of fairness. If a youth does not perceive 

the juvenile justice system to be predictable and fair, then 

the system’s goal of changing behavior is less likely to be 

achieved. (NCJFCJ, 2005:44).
Delays in Youth Justice 51

The NCJFCJ standards suggested that the time between the initial 

hearing and disposition hearing should not exceed 40 business days 

in cases of non-detained juveniles, and 20 business days for detained 

cases. The NCJFCJ also issued more detailed process charts that 

recommended the following time limitations dependent upon a youths’ 

admission or denial of an allegation (NCJFCJ, 2005:207): 

■ 1 day to 2 weeks for detained cases where a juvenile admits 

responsibility for the offense; 

■ 1 to 4 weeks for detained cases where a juvenile denies 

responsibility for the offense; 

■ 1 to 5 weeks for non-detained cases where a juvenile admits 

responsibility for the offense; 

■ 3 to 6 weeks for cases where a juvenile is transferred to adult 

court; and 

■ 3 to 11 weeks for non-detained cases where a juvenile denies 

responsibility for the offense.

When taking into account the triggering event of the initial hearing, 

the time limits recommended in Juvenile Delinquency Guidelines were 

more stringent than the NDAA standards, but generally similar to those 

published earlier by the IJA/ABA, NAC, and ABA. The NCJFCJ also 

recommended several practices for improving timeliness and increasing 

the efficiency of case handling. As part of effective case docketing 

and case management, the NCJFCJ urged juvenile courts to routinely 

record and review data on the length of time between each delinquency 

hearing and the reasons for continuances, and to disaggregate the 

information to examine patterns of case processing time by specific 

judges, prosecutors, and public defenders. Beyond case management 

practices, the NCJFCJ also suggested that courts consider the following 

management reforms (NCJFCJ, 2005:122): 

■ Implement alternative methods for disposing cases involving 

minor offenses through diversion options to ease the burden of 

the formal caseload on the court;

■ Limit the number of full-length trials by using alternatives to 

mediate and resolve disputes; and

■ Eliminate inefficiencies caused by routine processing delays such 

as repeated continuances and excessive waiting on hearing dates.

The development of these various standards and guidelines reflects a 

growing awareness of juvenile court delay among legal professionals 

and policy makers. Of course, the impact of standards on actual case 

processing may be limited. This is especially true if the time frames 

As part of 

effective case 

docketing 

and case 

management, the 

NCJFCJ urged 

juvenile courts to 

routinely record 

and review data 

on the length of 

time between 

each delinquency 

hearing and 

the reasons for 

continuances, 

and to 

disaggregate 

the information 

to examine 

patterns of 

case processing 

time by 

specific judges, 

prosecutors, and 

public defenders.
Delays in Youth Justice 52

suggested by the standards are considerably faster than the pace 

at which many juvenile courts are currently able to process their 

delinquency caseloads. According to the analyses in this report, the 

median time between case referral and final disposition for petitioned 

delinquency cases often exceeds 60 days. In large jurisdictions, nearly 

half of formally petitioned cases have disposition times in excess of 90 

days. Thus, actual case processing time in many jurisdictions already 

exceeds the maximum time limits recommended by professional 

standards. Whether juvenile courts are overloaded and poorly managed 

or the standards themselves are out-of-date and unrealistic is a matter 

for further investigation. 
Delays in Youth Justice 53

Recent Trends in 

Delinquency Case 

Processing Time 

Measuring variations in the timing of juvenile court case processing 

can be a complex task. The case handling practices of juvenile courts 

vary greatly between jurisdictions, and the courts themselves may be 

organized quite differently depending on State law. Most states give 

their juvenile courts legal jurisdiction over cases involving delinquency, 

neglect, and status offense proceedings. Many juvenile courts also have 

jurisdiction over adoptions, terminations of parental rights, interstate 

compact matters, emancipation, and consent (i.e., to marry, enlist in 

the armed services, be employed, etc.). Occasionally, juvenile courts 

may even have jurisdiction over traffic violations and child support 

matters. Juvenile courts across the U.S. also vary considerably in their 

responsibilities and activities. Compared to the adult courts, the juvenile 

court process is highly individualized and multifaceted. Juvenile courts 

focus on more than just the legal process leading to the final disposition 

of a case. Their decisions must consider the rights and welfare of the 

individual juvenile and the juvenile’s family, as well as the role of 

other agencies involved with the family such as the educational and 

child welfare systems. A juvenile court’s adjudicatory process usually 

incorporates information about the youth’s welfare, the family’s 

situation, the court’s prior involvement with both the youth and the 

family, and the youth’s history of adjustment in previous placements 

or program settings. 

Juvenile courts also vary in terms of their underlying ideology. Some 

juvenile courts clearly provide a “purpose clause” that states the 

goals and objectives of the court. For example, at least 17 states have 

Balanced and Restorative Justice clauses, emphasizing public safety, 

individual accountability to victims and the community, and the 

development in offenders of those skills necessary to live law-abiding 

and productive lives as primary goals of the court (Griffin et al., 2006). 

Some juvenile courts emphasize traditional child welfare, others utilize 

the legislative guide from the Family and Juvenile Court Acts (1960s), 

and finally others promote punishment, deterrence, and accountability 

of juveniles. Although difficult to measure directly, the philosophy of 

juvenile justice at work in a jurisdiction may affect the amount of time 

between arrest and disposition.
Delays in Youth Justice 54

Some juvenile courts restrict their focus to adjudication and disposition. 

Juveniles before such courts are referred to other agencies immediately 

following disposition. These courts are likely to have fewer 

employees—a judge, perhaps a court reporter and a clerk—and their 

case handling procedures are relatively uncomplicated. Other juvenile 

courts provide a full array of pre-trial and post-dispositional services 

with large professional staffs. Juvenile courts in more than half the 

states administer their own probation services and many are responsible 

for detention and intake as well (Torbet, 1990). Such full-service courts 

essentially function as social welfare agencies, residential treatment 

providers, correctional facilities, and collection agencies. They require 

more complicated and time-consuming procedures. 

Jurisdictions also vary in the degree to which law enforcement 

agencies divert youths from the juvenile justice system. If the police 

send virtually all delinquency referrals forward for court handling, 

the juvenile court must contend with a more diverse population of 

youth. This would require the juvenile court intake unit to employ 

more aggressive case screening practices before formal court action 

is considered. Prosecutors may also have differing authority and 

involvement at the point of intake, which could affect the relative use 

of various alternatives to juvenile court action. 

Many matters referred to the juvenile court are resolved without official 

action. In 2004, for example, nearly half (43%) the delinquency cases 

referred to U.S. juvenile courts were handled without formal petitions 

or judicial hearings (Stahl et al., 2007). A juvenile involved in an 

unofficial (or informal) case may agree to some type of service or 

sanction, such as voluntary probation, restitution or community service, 

but no charges or petitions are filed in the case. Because informal cases 

are completed faster than formally charged matters, a court that relies 

heavily on informal handling for its delinquency cases would appear 

to be faster. 

Case Processing Stages

In order to study delinquency case processing across many different 

jurisdictions, it is necessary to impose a standard definition of the 

various steps involved in the juvenile justice process. The National 

Juvenile Court Data Archive at NCJJ developed a generic model of 

juvenile justice processing precisely for this purpose.1 The NCJJ 

generic model is used to restructure juvenile court data files from 

different jurisdictions so that the handling of delinquency cases can 

Although 

difficult to 

measure directly, 

the philosophy 

of juvenile 

justice at work 

in a jurisdiction 

may affect the 

amount of time 

between arrest 

and disposition.

1. These descriptions of case 

processing stages are adapted 

from Juvenile Court Statistics 

(e.g., Stahl et al., 2007). For a 

more complete description of 

the National Juvenile Court Data 

Archive and its contents, see 

any recent report in the annual 

series, Juvenile Court Statistics, 

published by the Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (OJJDP), Office 

of Justice Programs, U.S. 

Department of Justice.
Delays in Youth Justice 55

be tracked through the same basic steps. The model recognizes that 

certain processing steps are common to all juvenile justice systems, 

regardless of terminology, the jurisdictional configuration of the court, 

or the allocation of service delivery responsibilities. All juvenile justice 

systems must have some version of intake, a pre-trial procedure in 

which charges are delineated, an adjudication process that establishes 

the facts of a case, and a dispositional process that imposes sanctions. 

While no single jurisdiction may use these terms in exactly this manner, 

the Archive restructures the processing of all delinquency cases into 

this basic sequence. 

■ Referral — Cases are first screened by an intake department 

(either within or outside the court). The intake department may 

decide to dismiss the case for lack of legal sufficiency to resolve 

the matter formally or informally. Informal (i.e., nonpetitioned) 

dispositions may include voluntary referral to a social service 

agency, informal probation, or the payment of fines or some 

form of voluntary restitution. Formally handled cases are petitioned and scheduled for an adjudicatory or waiver hearing.

■ Petition — If the intake department decides that a case should be 

handled formally within the juvenile court, a petition is filed and 

is placed on the court calendar (or docket) for an adjudicatory 

hearing. A small number of petitions are dismissed for various 

reasons before an adjudicatory hearing is actually held. 

■ Adjudication — A youth may be adjudicated (judged) a delinquent or status offender, and the case would then proceed to a 

disposition hearing. Alternatively, a case can be dismissed or 

continued in contemplation of dismissal. In these cases, the court 

often recommends that the juvenile take some actions prior to the 

final adjudication decision, such as paying restitution or voluntarily attending drug counseling. 

■ Disposition — The court determines the most appropriate sanction, generally after reviewing a predisposition report prepared 

by a probation department. The range of options available to the 

court typically includes commitment to an institution; placement 

in a group or foster home or other residential facility; probation 

(either regular or intensive supervision); referral to an outside 

agency, day treatment, or mental health program; or imposition 

of a fine, community service, or restitution.2

By examining the time between the stages of this generic juvenile justice 

process, the extent of variation in case processing time for delinquency 

cases in juvenile courts throughout the United States can be examined. 

Specifically, national patterns in delinquency case processing time may 

2. Excludes cases that do 

not involve juvenile court 

adjudication hearings because a 

youth was waived or transferred 

to criminal (adult) court instead. 

Judicial waivers to criminal 

court account for less than one 

percent of all cases referred to 

U.S. juvenile courts (Stahl et al., 

2007).
Delays in Youth Justice 56

be explored to determine; whether case processing is slower or faster in 

smaller versus larger jurisdictions, in cases that involve secure detention 

versus those that do not, and in cases that are formally petitioned and 

formally adjudicated versus those that are dismissed or disposed with 

voluntary sanctions. 

Previous Trends 

The NCJJ study by Butts and Halemba (1996) provided the first and only 

detailed examination of national trends in delinquency case processing 

time. The results indicated that delinquency case processing time 

increased substantially between 1985 and 1994. The overall median 

time to disposition for formally processed cases grew from 64 to 72 

days during the ten-year period addressed by the study. The increase 

in case processing time was seen across jurisdictions, as the median 

time to disposition for formally processed cases increased 20 percent 

for large counties (those with populations greater than 400,000) and 21 

percent for small counties (those with populations less than 100,000). 

Mid-sized counties demonstrated the largest increase in median time to 

disposition for formally processed cases, up 35 percent between 1985 

and 1994. 

The study also indicated that the timing of juvenile court disposition 

was at least partly related to jurisdiction size. Larger jurisdictions with 

heavier caseloads were more likely than smaller jurisdictions to have 

problems with case processing delays. However, the authors noted 

that counties exhibited varying degrees of court delay, regardless of 

the population. Some of the longest processing times were observed in 

relatively small jurisdictions. 

The NCJJ study suggested several factors that could be related to delay 

problems, including the severity of offenses, the rate at which courts 

use formal adjudication and out-of-home placement and the enactment 

of State statutes or court rules to regulate case processing. In addition, 

the authors identified a clear association between growing delinquency 

caseloads and aggregate patterns in disposition time. Among 

jurisdictions with declining caseloads, the average median processing 

time for formal delinquency cases fell by 35 percent between 1985 

and 1994. For jurisdictions with caseloads increasing by 50 percent or 

more, the average median processing time grew by 109 percent (from 

44 to 92 days). Most importantly, the study found that many juvenile 

court dispositions times exceeded even the most lenient professional 

juvenile justice standards. 
Delays in Youth Justice 57

This analysis updates and extends the NCJJ study by assessing more 

recent patterns (1995-2004) in delinquency case processing and by 

analyzing the relationships between case processing time and various 

case outcomes. It explores the extent to which case processing time 

varies by the size of the jurisdiction in which the court is located, the 

rate at which cases are formally petitioned and adjudicated by the 

court, the composition of the court’s delinquency caseload, and the use 

of secure detention prior to disposition. This study also relies on the 

prior study to answer a number of questions, such as: Did the pace 

of juvenile court disposition for delinquency cases change during the 

twenty years from 1985 to 2004, by how much, and for what types of 

cases? The analysis utilizes a database constructed from the automated 

case records submitted annually to the National Juvenile Court Data 

Archive at the National Center for Juvenile Justice. For the years 

addressed by this study (1985 to 2004), the NCJJ database includes 

records for more than 10 million delinquency cases handled by courts 

in nearly 1,800 jurisdictions across 21 different States and the District 

of Columbia. 

The National Juvenile Court Data Archive

This study relies on data files contributed voluntarily to the National Juvenile 

Court Data Archive at the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) by 

hundreds of juvenile courts and juvenile justice agencies throughout the 

United States. Information from these jurisdictions is used to generate the 

national delinquency estimates reported annually in Juvenile Court Statistics, 

a publication series from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention within the U.S. Department of Justice (Stahl et al., 2007). In 2004, 

the NCJJ national estimates of delinquency cases were based on detailed, 

individual case records from nearly 1,800 courts as well as aggregate courtlevel data from another 200 courts. Together, these jurisdictions contained 

more than 77 percent of the total U.S. juvenile population.

Unlike traditional research data files that are collected by researchers for a 

unique purpose, the data files contributed to the Archive at NCJJ are extracted 

from information systems used to support actual court operations. Some 

information that would be of interest to researchers is typically not available in 

these data files (e.g., social service histories, family backgrounds, co-defendant 

information, etc.), and the detail available in some data files may not be 

contained in others. Even when similar data elements are available, they may 

have inconsistent definitions or overlapping coding categories. Juvenile courts 

collect and organize their own data using their own definitions and coding 

categories. Information from automated data systems, however, tends to be 

highly accurate because it is the same data used to conduct the daily business 

of the court.

For more information about the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, visit the 

website of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) at: 

http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ 
Delays in Youth Justice 58

Study Sample

Of the thousands of jurisdictions that contribute case-level data files to 

the NCJJ Archive, some are able to submit only basic information about 

the youth involved in each case (e.g., sex, race, age, and offense). Many 

jurisdictions, however, are able to contribute more detailed records with 

multiple indicators of court activity, including the calendar dates of case 

processing events. During the period from 1995 to 2004, for example, 

detailed data with case processing dates were contributed annually by 

juvenile courts in 21 States and the District of Columbia: Alabama, 

Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, 

Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, 

Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and West 

Virginia. In some of these States (e.g., Connecticut), case records were 

available from every jurisdiction in the State. In others, records were 

available from only a sub-set of jurisdictions, ranging from just one 

large county in states such as Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, to nearly 

all counties in states such as Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. 

For a number of reasons, some individual jurisdictions were excluded 

from this study even though they contributed data to the NCJJ Archive. 

Individual counties were included in the study sample only if all of the 

following conditions were met:

1) Detailed delinquency records were available for every year in the 

study period; 

2) The total population of the jurisdiction was 20,000 or more;3

3) The jurisdiction disposed at least 30 formally-processed delinquency 

cases per year; and 

4) Accurate dates of referral and disposition were included in the court’s 

delinquency case records.4

The same inclusion criteria were employed in the previous NCJJ study 

(1985 – 1994) and 267 counties from 17 states qualified for analysis. 

For this study (1995 – 2004), 392 counties from 22 states met all the 

criteria (Figure 1). As of the 2000 United States Census, these counties 

contained 33 percent of the U.S. population. Most (236) jurisdictions 

had total populations less than 100,000, while 102 counties had 

populations between 100,000 and 400,000, and 54 had populations 

greater than 400,000. 

3. To eliminate very small counties 

that handled only a few cases 

per year, jurisdictions with less 

than 20,000 in total population 

were deleted from the data file 

before analysis. The removal 

of these small counties reduced 

the study’s initial database 

of delinquency cases by five 

percent. 

4. If fewer than 10 percent of 

the case records from any one 

jurisdiction contained errors in 

these two date fields, only the 

erroneous records were deleted 

from the database. If 10 percent 

or more of the records contained 

these date errors, the entire 

jurisdiction was removed from 

the database. 
Delays in Youth Justice 59

Findings

Together, the jurisdictions in the Chapin Hall study sample handled 

6.4 million delinquency cases between 1995 and 2004. Their combined 

annual caseload decreased eight percent between 1995 and 2004, from 

600,415 to 552,600 cases per year (Table 3). The characteristics of 

the delinquency cases processed by the sample jurisdictions were very 

similar to the characteristics of delinquency cases handled nationwide, 

according to national estimates in the Juvenile Court Statistics report 

from OJJDP (Stahl et al., 2007). For example, 21 percent of the cases 

handled by the sample jurisdictions in 2004 involved the use of secure 

detention prior to disposition, compared with 21 percent nationally.5

About half the cases were processed formally in 2004, both nationally 

(51%) and in the study sample (57%). While the sample jurisdictions 

adjudicated 37 percent of their delinquency cases in 2004, adjudications 

occurred in 38 percent of delinquency cases nationwide. The profile 

of offenses and dispositions among the cases processed by sample 

jurisdictions were also similar to those of delinquency cases nationwide. 

Cases in which the most serious charge was an offense against a 

person accounted for approximately one-fourth of all cases in both the 

study sample and the national estimates. Out-of-home placement was 

ordered in about 10 percent of sample cases and nine percent of all 

cases nationwide. The comparability of the sample data with national 

delinquency caseloads was evident in both 1995 and 2004. 

5. In this study, a case involving 

detention refers only to instances 

in which a youth was placed in 

a restrictive facility under court 

authority while awaiting the 

outcome of the juvenile court 

process. 

Notes: Broken time series. Data for 1985-1994 based on the NCJJ study of 267 counties from 17 

states. Analysis for 1995-2004 based on the Chapin Hall study of 392 counties from 22 states. 

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes)

Figure 1: Average of county median disposition times (in 

days) for petitioned delinquency cases, 1985-2004. 
Delays in Youth Justice 60

Table 3: Characteristics of delinquency cases handled by juvenile courts in a 

sample of 392 U.S. counties, compared with national delinquency estimates.

1995 2004

Study Sample

National 

Estimate Study Sample

National 

Estimate

Total Delinquency Cases 600,415 100% 100% 552,600 100% 100%

Pre-Disposition Detention

Cases not involving detention 282,827 84% 84% 141,558 79% 80%

Cases involving detention 55,549 16% 17% 37,006 21% 21%

Juvenile Court Handling

Informal (non-petitioned) 280,094 47% 46% 235,720 43% 43%

Formal (petitioned) 320,321 53% 54% 316,880 57% 57%

Juvenile Court Adjudication

Not adjudicated 423,482 71% 70% 346,041 63% 62%

Adjudicated 176,200 29% 30% 201,782 37% 38%

Most Serious Charge

Person (e.g., robbery, assault) 134,751 22% 22% 137,876 25% 24%

Property (e.g., burglary, larceny) 297,534 50% 50% 202,938 37% 36%

Drug (e.g., sales, possession) 59,189 10% 9% 65,842 12% 12%

Public order (e.g., vandalism) 108,941 18% 18% 145,944 26% 28%

Most Restrictive Disposition

Released 218,212 36% 38% 175,853 32% 31%

Placed on Probation 202,566 34% 35% 199,464 36% 36%

Out-of-home Placement 53,279 9% 9% 56,980 10% 9%

Other (e.g., fines, restitution, 

community service)

126,358 21% 19% 120,303 22% 24%

County Population in 2000

Small county (under 100,000) 74,228 12% NA 75,743 14% NA

Midsize county 126,876 21% NA 128,471 23% NA

Large county (over 400,000) 399,311 67% NA 348,386 63% NA

Notes: Detail may not add to total because of missing data for some variables. Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sample: All delinquency cases disposed in 392 counties with populations greater than 20,000 in 22 States and the District of 

Columbia: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, 

New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia.
Delays in Youth Justice 61

Time from Referral to Disposition

The number of days between referral and disposition was calculated for 

every delinquency case handled by the sample jurisdictions from 1995 

through 2004 (Table 4). In 1995, 32 percent of the delinquency cases 

disposed by the sample jurisdictions had disposition times exceeding 

90 days. By 2004, this percentage had decreased to 29 percent. The 

median time to disposition for all cases in 2004 was 44 days, a decrease 

of 10 percent from 1995. The median is the preferred measure of central 

tendency in a study of case processing time since, unlike the mean 

(average) the median is not affected by a small number of cases with 

extreme values. 

Disposition time appeared to be related to jurisdiction size. In 2004, the 

median time to disposition for cases from large counties was 49 days, 

compared with 40 days for midsize jurisdictions, and 34 days in small 

jurisdictions. In the largest counties, 32 percent of all delinquency 

cases required more than 90 days to reach disposition, compared with 

23 percent of cases from the smallest counties. Similar differences in 

the disposition times of small versus large jurisdictions were apparent 

in 1995. 

In 1995, the median disposition time for cases involving secure 

detention was 53 days, compared with 58 days for cases that did not 

involve detention. There was very little difference in the timing of 2004 

case processing according to whether detention was involved (48 days 

for cases involving detention and 49 days for cases that did not involve 

detention). Of course, it is important to recognize that the measure of 

detention in this analysis is simply whether or not detention was used at 

any point prior to disposition of a case. It does not specify the amount 

of time a youth spent in detention, nor does it control for the point in 

case processing when a youth was detained. 

In both 1995 and 2004, formally charged cases had substantially 

longer disposition times than cases handled informally. The median 

processing time for formal cases was 70 days in 2004, and two of every 

five formal cases required more than 90 days to reach disposition. 

Informally handled cases, on the other hand, had a median disposition 

time of 19 days in 2004, with only 15 percent taking more than 90 days 

to conclude. Formally charged cases in large jurisdictions took even 

longer to dispose. 

In 1995, 32 

percent of the 

delinquency 

cases disposed 

by the sample 

jurisdictions had 

disposition times 

exceeding 90 

days. By 2004, 

this percentage 

had decreased to 

29 percent. The 

median time to 

disposition for 

all cases in 2004 

was 44 days, a 

decrease of 10 

percent from 

1995. 
Delays in Youth Justice 62

Table 4: Days elapsed between referral and final disposition for delinquency 

cases handled in 1995 and 2004 by juvenile courts in 392 U.S. counties.

Number of 

Cases

Median Days 

to Disposition

Percent of 

Cases Over 90 

Days

1995 2004 1995 2004 1995 2004

Total Delinquency Cases 600,415 552,600 49 44 32% 29%

Small county (under 100,000) 74,228 75,743 32 34 20% 23%

Midsize county 126,876 128,471 46 40 29% 26%

Large county (over 400,000) 399,311 348,386 55 49 34% 32%

No use of detention 282,827 141,558 58 49 35% 33%

Detention used 55,549 37,006 53 48 31% 29%

Informal (non-petitioned cases) 280,094 235,720 24 19 17% 15%

Formal (petitioned cases) 320,321 316,880 78 70 44% 39%

Formal Cases

Small county (under 100,000) 34,206 38,351 55 54 31% 31%

Midsize county 63,411 66,606 67 63 38% 36%

Large county (over 400,000) 222,704 211,923 85 75 48% 42%

No use of detention 134,753 56,769 90 83 50% 47%

Detention used 46,319 30,416 60 55 34% 32%

Informal (non-petitioned cases) 143,388 110,321 86 79 48% 45%

Formal (petitioned cases) 176,200 201,782 72 65 41% 37%

Person offense cases 77,692 82,777 83 76 46% 42%

Property offense cases 146,501 108,154 84 78 47% 44%

Drug law violations 36,575 40,550 76 70 43% 39%

Public order offenses 59,553 85,399 58 54 34% 31%

Adjudicated Cases

Placed out of the home 53,082 56,980 67 56 38% 34%

Probaton or other supervision 102,261 130,451 77 70 43% 39%

Other 20,857 14,351 62 53 37% 30%

Notes: Detail may not add to total because of missing data for some variables.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes)
Delays in Youth Justice 63

The median disposition time for petitioned delinquency cases from 

the largest 30 counties in the sample was 88 days in 1995. There was 

a marked decline in time to disposition for formal delinquency case 

in the largest 30 counties through 2004; the median fell to 78 days, 

the proportion of cases exceeding 90 days fell to 44 percent, and the 

number of counties whose median exceeded 90 days fell from 16 to 11. 

The impact of juvenile court efforts to accelerate the disposition of 

detention cases appeared to be pronounced among formally petitioned 

cases. When secure detention was used at some point in the processing 

of formally charged cases, the median disposition time was 55 days in 

2004. In cases where detention was never used, the median time from 

referral to disposition was 83 days. 

One of the longer median disposition times in both 1995 and 2004 was 

for formally charged delinquency cases not resulting in adjudication 

(79 days in 2004). More than two of every five (45%) of these cases in 

2004 had disposition times in excess of 90 days. In part, this may reflect 

the use of court continuances in cases that are held open pending a 

juvenile’s completion of voluntary sanctions, a practice that is common 

in many juvenile courts with large caseloads. 

Disposition times varied somewhat according to the most serious 

offense involved in delinquent cases, with formally charged property 

and person offense cases having the longest median disposition time in 

2004 (78 and 76 days, respectively). Public order offense cases had the 

shortest median time (54 days in 2004). The type of disposition ordered 

in formally adjudicated cases also appeared to be associated with 

length of case processing. Adjudicated delinquency cases resulting in 

probation orders were handled more slowly than those ending in other 

dispositions, with a median time to disposition of 70 days in 2004. Of 

the major types of court dispositions, out-of-home placement cases had 

the shortest processing time in both 1995 and 2004.

Case Completion Rates

Another technique that can be used to examine case processing time 

is to plot the cumulative rate of dispositions in a continuous fashion, 

producing a visual representation of what proportion of all cases were 

completed at any increment of processing time—30 days, 60 days, 90 

days, etc. Compared with analyses of central tendency (i.e., mean and 

median), analyzing the cumulative disposition rate often allows a more 

detailed understanding of case processing time (e.g., Grossman et al., 

1981). 
Delays in Youth Justice 64

Substantial differences in the timing of formal and informal delinquency 

cases were apparent in graphic form (Figure 2). The disposition rate 

for informal cases handled by the sample courts was very rapid in the 

first few weeks following referral. In 2004 more than half (64%) of all 

informal cases were completed within 30 days of referral. On the other 

hand, fewer than one-quarter (23%) of formally petitioned cases were 

disposed within 30 days. Even after 120 days, 25 percent of formally 

adjudicated cases had yet to reach disposition. The same was true for 

33 percent of formally-charged, non-adjudicated cases. 

Graphic analysis also revealed substantial differences in case 

processing time according to the size of jurisdictions (Figure 3). In 

2004 delinquency cases from the largest jurisdictions (those with more 

than 400,000 residents) took considerably longer to reach disposition. 

Four months or 120 days after referral, 23 percent of all delinquency 

cases from the largest jurisdictions were still short of final disposition. 

The smallest jurisdictions in the study, or those with between 20,000 

and 100,000 total residents, appeared to move cases to disposition more 

quickly. In these jurisdictions, 77 percent of all delinquency cases were 

disposed within 90 days.

Changes in Case Processing Time

As previously discussed, the median time to disposition increased for 

nearly all types of delinquency cases between 1985 and 1994 (Butts 

and Halemba, 1996). Between 1995 and 2004, however, the median 

time to disposition for cases from the sample jurisdictions decreased 

10 percent, from 49 to 44 days. Declines were also seen in formally 

processed cases, which had a median of 70 days in 2004 compared with 

78 days in 1995. Comparing the timing of formally petitioned cases 

only, the median disposition time from large counties fell 12 percent 

between 1995 and 2004, from 85 days to 75 days, while the median 

for cases from smaller counties (under 100,000 population) fell only 

slightly from 55 to 54 days. 

Disposition time varied according to the most serious offense involved 

in a delinquency case.6 Formally processed person and property 

offense cases had much longer median disposition times than public 

order offense cases, regardless of county size. In all four of the major 

categories of delinquency offenses, cases from large counties had the 

longest median disposition times (Figure 4). Between 1995 and 2004, 

large counties experienced the greatest decline in time to disposition 

across offense categories. For example, formally processed person 

In 2004 more 

than half (64%) 

of all informal 

cases were 

completed 

within 30 days 

of referral. On 

the other hand, 

fewer than onequarter (23%) 

of formally 

petitioned cases 

were disposed 

within 30 days. 

Even after 120 

days, 25 percent 

of formally 

adjudicated cases 

had yet to reach 

disposition. 

6. Detailed comparisons of 

processing time among the 

sampled jurisdictions are based 

on formally petitioned cases 

only because the jurisdictions in 

the study were known to vary in 

the extent to which they relied 

on juvenile courts to handle 

informal (i.e., often less serious) 

delinquency matters. The 

treatment of formally petitioned 

delinquency cases was more 

consistently reported among the 

sampled jurisdictions. 
Delays in Youth Justice 65

offense cases from large jurisdictions had a median disposition time 

of 81 days in 2004, down nine percent from 1995 (89 days). By 

comparison, the median disposition time for formally processed person 

offense cases decreased relatively less between 1995 and 2004, for 

midsize and small jurisdictions (down 4% and 1% respectively).

When examining 20 years of delinquency court processing data by 

offense category, changes in delinquency case processing time exhibited 

a general pattern. For many types of cases, median disposition times 

increased between 1985 and 1990 and then declined between 1990 

and 1992. The median time to disposition for property offense cases, 

for example, fell four to six days in all population groups between 

1990 and 1992. Between 1992 and 1996, however, the median time to 

disposition generally increased for all population groups and offense 

categories. The opposite pattern was found for the period of 1996 to 

2004, where median disposition times declined for each population 

group across offense categories. The declines in median disposition 

time between 1996 and 2004 were greater than 10 percent in large 

counties for all offense categories. By offense, the decline in median 

Figure 2: Rate of disposition for 2004 delinquency cases 

processed by juvenile courts in 392 counties, by manner of 

handling

Notes: Analysis based on non-petitioned (informally handled) cases (n=237,253), formally 

petitioned cases that were not adjudicated (n=115,431), and petitioned cases that were adjudicated 

(n=201,796). 

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes).
Delays in Youth Justice 66

time to disposition for drug offense cases was consistently large for all 

population groups, down by 16 percent for small counties, 13 percent 

for large counties, and 11 percent for mid-sized counties.

Jurisdiction Differences

Large jurisdictions are over-represented in the preceding analyses 

due to the size of their caseloads. In fact, half (51%) of all formally 

petitioned delinquency cases were handled by the 30 largest counties in 

the 392 jurisdiction study sample. Thus, the measures presented above 

may reflect the nature of case processing in a relatively small number 

of jurisdictions. In order to understand jurisdictional variations in case 

processing time it is helpful to reduce the disproportionate influence of 

large counties. 

Figure 3: Rate of disposition for 2004 delinquency cases 

processed by juvenile courts in 392 counties, by size of 

county population.

Notes: Analysis based on all delinquency cases from small counties (n=75,743), all cases from 

midsized counties (n=128,471), and all cases from large counties (n=348,386). 

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes).
Delays in Youth Justice 67

An entirely different method can be used to examine jurisdictionlevel differences with aggregate case processing measures. Using the 

original data file, a jurisdiction-level data file was constructed that 

contained aggregate measures of case processing time for each county 

in the study, independently of the number of cases disposed. For 

example, a single aggregate measure for median days to disposition 

was calculated for each jurisdiction whether that measure summarized 

the processing of 100 cases or 1,000 cases. County-aggregate variables 

include the total number of formally handled delinquency cases, 

the number of cases that were detained, adjudicated, etc. Aggregate 

measures of case processing time included the mean and median days 

from referral to disposition for all cases, the percentage of all cases that 

required more than 90 days to complete, the mean and median days 

for detained cases, adjudicated cases, and so on. Using these aggregate 

measures, the analysis was able to explore jurisdictional differences in 

case processing time while controlling for caseload size. 

An entirely 

different method 

can be used 

to examine 

jurisdictionlevel differences 

with aggregate 

case processing 

measures. ... 

For example, a 

single aggregate 

measure for 

median days to 

disposition was 

calculated for 

each jurisdiction 

whether that 

measure 

summarized the 

processing of 100 

cases or 1,000 

cases.

Figure 4: Median days between referral and disposition for 

delinquency cases processed by juvenile courts, by size of 

county population: 1985-2004.

Notes: Broken Time Series, 1985-2004. Analysis for 1985-1994 based on the NCJJ study of 267 

counties from 17 states. Analysis for 1995-2004 based on the Chapin Hall study of 392 counties 

from 22 states.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see Table 3 notes). 
Delays in Youth Justice 68

Among all sample jurisdictions, the median disposition time for formal 

delinquency cases ranged from one day to just under 200 days. The 

average median was 66 days (Table 5). Jurisdictions with the largest 

populations had the highest average median. Among all counties with 

populations greater than 200,000, the average median disposition time 

for petitioned cases was 77 days, compared with an average of 76 days 

for counties between 60,000 and 200,000 in population, and 54 days 

for counties with populations under 60,000. In all categories, with the 

exception of petitioned case that were not adjudicated, the average 

median processing time was generally consistent in counties identified 

as mid-sized or large.

Median disposition times appeared to be more closely associated with 

the number of petitioned delinquency cases disposed by the sample 

jurisdictions. Although the pattern was again not entirely uniform, the 

average median disposition time for petitioned delinquency cases was 

greatest in jurisdictions with the largest caseloads (over 500 formally 

handled cases per year). 

Table 5: Average median disposition time (in days) for 2004 

cases disposed in sample counties, by case type, population, 

and total size of 2004 caseload.

Formal, Petitioned 

Delinquency Cases Adjudicated Cases

Total

Not 

Adjudi - 

cated

Adjudi - 

cated

Placed on 

Probation

Placed out 

of home

All counties (n=392) 66 85 66 72 57

County population in 2004

Under 60,000 (n=172) 54 78 54 58 47

60,000 to 200,000 (n=130) 76 94 76 83 66

Over 200,000 (n=90) 77 85 75 82 65

Cases disposed in 2004

Under 200 cases (n=174) 60 82 62 68 52

200-500 cases (n=104) 68 90 65 71 59

Over 500 cases (n=114) 74 84 73 78 63

Note: Each measure represents the average of the median case processing times for counties in that 

category. In other words, while the median disposition time for petitioned cases ranged from 1 to 

200 days among the 392 sample jurisdictions, the average of these county medians was 66 days.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes).
Delays in Youth Justice 69

The relationship between processing time and the size of jurisdictions—

both in terms of population and caseload—suggest that processing 

delays were generally more problematic in larger jurisdictions. 

However, it is possible that the differences shown in Table 5 were 

due to random variations or the influence of a few jurisdictions with 

unusual disposition times. One way to examine this possibility was to 

portray the association between population size and case processing 

time for every jurisdiction in the study. 

The relationship between jurisdiction size and case processing time 

was examined by plotting the median case processing time for formally 

handled cases in each jurisdiction against the total population of that 

jurisdiction (Figure 5). The correlation between jurisdiction size and 

median disposition time appeared to be relatively weak when examined 

in this manner. There was considerable variation in median processing 

time regardless of population, and some of the longest case-processing 

times were seen in relatively small jurisdictions.

Figure 5: Median days to disposition for formal delinquency 

cases disposed in 2004, by county population in 2004.

Notes: For presentation purposes, 17 counties with populations between 1 and 10 million were 

recoded to appear as having populations between 900,000 and 1 million.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Table 3 notes).
Delays in Youth Justice 70

Clearly, a jurisdiction’s median case processing time for delinquency 

cases is more than simply a reflection of its population size or the burden 

of its caseload. Many factors affect case processing time. Other factors 

that have been identified by research on criminal court case processing 

include the severity of the court’s caseload, the proportion of all cases 

that result in formal charges and conviction, and the characteristics of 

the jurisdiction itself—demographic composition, legal structure, etc.

In addition, it appears that when examined by adjudication, the 

long-term trends in the handling of formally processed delinquency 

caseloads have not been consistent. The previous NCJJ study found 

that the average median for both formally processed adjudicated 

and non-adjudicated cases increased substantially between 1985 and 

1995. In the current study, the average median time to disposition for 

formally processed non-adjudicated cases increased slightly, while 

for adjudicated case it decreased between 1995 and 2004 (Figure 6). 

Between 1985 and 1994, the average median time to disposition for 

formally processed adjudicated and non-adjudicated delinquency cases 

increased comparably, by 25 percent and 19 percent respectively. 

During the following ten-year period, the average median time to 

disposition for formally processed adjudicated cases fell by eight 

percent to 66 days. For non-adjudicated cases, the average median days 

to disposition remained at or near the 1995 level through 2004.

Caseload Characteristics 

Researchers studying justice delays have often shared the assumption 

that court processing time is longer in jurisdictions with more serious 

caseloads. In other words, as the proportion of cases involving serious 

charges or severe dispositions increases, so too should the time required 

to process all of the court’s cases. This assumption was examined by 

categorizing the sample jurisdictions according to the seriousness of 

their delinquency caseloads in 2004—e.g., the proportion of formal 

delinquency cases that involved a person offense as the most serious 

charge, the proportion of cases that involved a drug offense as the 

most serious charge, the proportion of cases that resulted in out-ofhome placement rather than probation or other dispositions, and the 

proportion of formal cases that were adjudicated by the court. The 

jurisdictions were divided roughly into thirds according to each of 

these factors. 

Clearly, a 

jurisdiction’s 

median case 

processing time 

for delinquency 

cases is more 

than simply a 

reflection of its 

population size 

or the burden of 

its caseload.
Delays in Youth Justice 71

For example, in 146 jurisdictions person offense cases accounted for 

fewer than 22 percent of all formal delinquency cases, while person 

offense cases made up between 22 percent and 29 percent of all 

cases in 136 jurisdictions, and 30 percent or more of all cases in 110 

jurisdictions (Table 6). The average median disposition times of these 

three groups varied. In 2004, the average median was 68 days among 

jurisdictions where person offense cases accounted for 30 percent or 

more of all formal cases, compared with an average median of 66 days 

in jurisdictions where person offense cases were 22 percent or less 

of the caseload. In addition, changes in disposition time were greater 

between 1995 and 2004 among the jurisdictions with lower proportions 

of person offense cases. 

Between 1995 and 2004, national estimates of trends in juvenile court 

caseloads indicate a significant increase in the number of drug offense 

cases (19%). These increases were also seen in the sample data used 

in the current study and were independent of the jurisdiction size and 

caseload. In 1995, the average median case processing time for drug 

Figure 6: Average median case processing time for petitioned 

delinquency cases, 1985-2004.

Notes: Broken Time Series, 1985-2004. Analysis for 1985-1994 based on 267 counties in the NCJJ 

study. Analysis for 1994-2004 based on 392 counties in the Chapin Hall study.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see Table 3 notes). 
Delays in Youth Justice 72

Table 6: Average median disposition time in 1995 and 2004, 

by caseload characteristics in 2004.

Average Medians

Number of Disposition Year Percent

Counties 1995 2004 Change

Total Study Sample 392 70 66 -5%

Proportion of court 

caseload that involved 

person offenses

 Under 22% 146 73 66 -9%

 22%-29% 136 79 79 -1%

 30% or more 110 71 68 -5%

Proportion of court 

caseload that involved 

drug offenses

 Under 9% 128 74 81 10%

 9%-13% 129 72 71 -2%

 14% or more 135 72 63 -12%

Proportion of court 

caseload that involved 

youth placed out of the 

home

 Under 10% 140 58 68 16%

 10%-19% 107 57 55 -4%

 20% or more 145 66 51 -22%

Proportion of court 

caseload that involved 

adjudicated youth

 Under 60% 125 78 77 -1%

 60%-79% 151 74 66 -11%

 80% or more 116 58 54 -8%

Note: Average median is the average of the median processing times of a group of counties.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see Table 3 notes). 
Delays in Youth Justice 73

offenses did not vary much of the basis based on the proportion of 

cases involving drug offenses. However, in 2004, counties with the 

lowest percentage of formally processed drug offense cases had the 

highest average median time to disposition at 81 days, an increase of 

10 percent from 1995. Counties with the largest share of drug offense 

cases had the shortest average median case processing time in 2004. 

These results differ greatly from the previous study, where a strong 

relationship was found between disposition time and caseload severity 

as measured by the relative proportion of drug offenses among a court’s 

delinquency caseload. In 1994, jurisdictions with the most drug offense 

cases had an average median disposition time that was greater than 

jurisdictions with a smaller number of drug offense cases. In 2004, 

the relationship was reversed. It may be possible that the shift in the 

offense profile of the juvenile court caseload had a significant impact 

on jurisdictional handling of drug cases. 

The association between disposition time and out-of-home placement 

was not in the expected direction. The average median disposition time 

for formal delinquency cases was 51 days among the 145 jurisdictions 

where out-of-home placement cases accounted for 20 percent or 

more of all formal cases, compared with 68 days among jurisdictions 

where placement cases were nine percent or less of the caseload. The 

relationship between disposition time and the use of adjudication by the 

sample jurisdictions was in the opposite direction. The average median 

disposition time was lowest (58 days in 1994) among the jurisdictions 

with the highest proportion of adjudications (those where 80 percent 

or more of all formally-handled delinquency cases were adjudicated). 

This finding, however, was consistent with analyses that have found 

disposition times decrease as the relative proportion of adjudications 

in a jurisdiction grow (Butts, 1997). Such a finding suggests that in 

courts where adjudications become frequent and routine, most of the 

court’s screening of cases occurs at the point of petitioning rather than 

adjudication, and the court’s deliberations at the adjudication stage 

are less involved and less time-consuming. On the other hand, the 

percentage increase in the average median disposition time between 

1985 and 1994 was greatest (35%) in jurisdictions with the highest 

rates of adjudication. 

Changes in Workload

Court workload is often presumed to affect case processing time. The 

study was able to examine this factor in part by comparing changes 

These results 

differ greatly 

from the 

previous study, 

where a strong 

relationship was 

found between 

disposition time 

and caseload 

severity as 

measured by 

the relative 

proportion of 

drug offenses 

among a court’s 

delinquency 

caseload.
Delays in Youth Justice 74

in average median case processing time among sample jurisdictions 

according to whether their delinquency caseloads increased between 

1995 and 2004. Overall, the average median disposition time of sample 

jurisdictions decreased five percent between 1995 and 2004, from 70 to 

66 days. Among jurisdictions that experienced increases of 50 percent 

or more in the size of their delinquency caseloads, the average median 

disposition increased by one percent between 1995 and 2004 (Table 7). 

Among jurisdictions with declining caseloads, on the other hand, the 

average median processing time fell six percent, from 68 to 64 days. 

For the period of 1985 and 1994, the previous NCJJ study found that 

disposition times increased far more in jurisdictions where caseloads 

increased substantially (Butts and Halemba, 1996). The relationship 

was observed among both large and small counties. For the period of 

1995 through 2004, however, average median case processing time 

declined among large jurisdictions regardless of caseload changes. 

Only small and mid-sized counties that experienced a caseload increase 

of 50 percent or greater also experienced an increase in their average 

median time to disposition. This finding is in stark contrast to the prior 

study’s support for the hypothesis that caseload pressures lead to case 

processing delays.

Of course, this analysis is suggestive only. Without more information 

about court resources (e.g., number of judges, courtrooms, and support 

staff), it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about the relationship 

between caseload changes, court workload, and disposition time. 

While the previous study found a clear association between growing 

delinquency caseloads and aggregate patterns of disposition time, 

results from the current study suggest that it is possible for caseloads 

to increase without negatively impacting disposition time. It is possible 

that court efficiency has improved or perhaps, legislative or court rules 

have been more regularly enforced to follow national guidelines, thus 

minimizing the impact of increasing caseloads. However, this is merely 

speculation without a close examination of how states handle deadlines 

for juvenile court processing.

Discussion 

The increasing juvenile court delays seen from 1985 to 1994 did 

not continue through 2004. Case processing time actually decreased 

between 1995 and 2004. Overall, the median disposition time for 

delinquency cases handled by the 392 jurisdictions in this study fell 

10 percent between 1995 and 2004, from 49 days to 44 days. There 
Delays in Youth Justice 75

are several explanations for these reductions in processing time. First, 

between 1995 and 2004, the total delinquency caseload decreased by 

eight percent in the study’s sample of counties. Courts with declining 

caseloads appeared to experience declining processing times. The 

number of delinquency cases from large jurisdictions in the sample 

(those with populations greater than 400,000) declined by 13 percent 

between 1995 and 2004, while their median time to disposition 

dropped by 11 percent. By comparison, the number of delinquency 

cases increased 2 percent for small counties (those with populations 

smaller than 100,000) and their median time to disposition increased 

six percent. 

This finding was most pronounced for formally processed delinquency 

cases. In small counties, the formal delinquency caseload increased 

by 12 percent and the median disposition time for formally processed 

cases remained stable. In large counties, the formal delinquency 

caseload decreased by five percent and the median disposition time for 

Table 7: Average median disposition time in 1995 and 2004, 

by population, by percentage change in formal delinquency 

caseloads from 1995 to 2004.

Average Median

Caseload Change: 

19995-200e

Number of 

Counties 1995 2004

Percent 

Change

All Decreased 182 68 64 -6%

Counties Up 1%-49% 127 74 69 -7%

Up 50% or more 83 67 68 1%

Small Decreased 77 58 56 -4%

Counties Up 1%-49% 53 56 52 -7%

Up 50% or more 42 49 52 5%

Midsize Decreased 53 74 69 -7%

Counties Up 1%-49% 48 79 77 -3%

Up 50% or more 29 83 86 4%

Large Decreased 52 78 70 -9%

Counties Up 1%-49% 26 100 88 -12%

Up 50% or more 12 87 78 -11%

Note: Average median is the average of the median processing times of a group of counties. See 

Table 3 for definitions of county population size in 1995.

Data Source: National Juvenile Court Data Archive, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see Table 3 notes). 
Delays in Youth Justice 76

formally processed cases from large counties fell 12 percent, from 85 

days to 75 days. In fact, in large counties that experienced a 50 percent 

increase in their formal delinquency caseload the average median time 

to disposition still decreased by 11 percent, between 1995 and 2004. 

Several factors appear to have contributed to lower median court 

processing time, including declining caseloads in large counties, 

larger proportions of adjudicated cases, larger proportions of formally 

processed cases involving detention, and larger proportions of cases 

involving public order offenses. While encouraging, these results do 

not suggest that unnecessary court delay has disappeared or that all 

problems associated with juvenile court delay have been resolved. 

Among the study’s sample of 54 large counties (those with populations 

exceeding 400,000), the median time to disposition for formally 

petitioned delinquency cases ranged from 15 to 198 days, and 11 of the 

jurisdictions had medians greater than 100 days. The average median 

among the 54 largest juvenile courts was 80 days. Forty-two percent 

of the cases in these jurisdictions had disposition times longer than 

90 days. These disposition times exceed the recommended standards 

promulgated by various national organizations and commissions over 

the past 30 years.

While 

encouraging, 

these results do 

not suggest that 

unnecessary 

court delay has 

disappeared or 

that all problems 

associated with 

juvenile court 

delay have been 

resolved. 
Delays in Youth Justice 77

Delay Reduction 

Efforts in Three 

Juvenile Courts

As part of this study, researchers visited three juvenile courts in the 

Midwestern United States. During these visits, the research team 

documented the case processing practices of the courts and their 

techniques for managing delinquency delays. The three jurisdictions 

studied were Hamilton County, Ohio (including the city of Cincinnati), 

Kent County, Michigan (including the city of Grand Rapids), and 

Peoria County, Illinois. These three sites were selected in part because 

they were relatively accessible to the Chicago area where the research 

team was based, but also because they enjoyed positive reputations for 

their efforts to address delinquency delays and for their ability to adhere 

to state-imposed case processing standards. Each court approached the 

challenge of case processing time in ways that reflected its own court 

culture and the resource base of its juvenile court system. 

The Chapin Hall study team collected data about each jurisdiction 

through on-site interviews with court staff, observations of court 

proceedings, and a review of court documents. Interviews were 

conducted with court administrators, judges, magistrates and referees, 

case managers, docket managers and clerks, prosecutors, research 

staff, and probation officers. The interviews focused on each court’s 

case processing information system, how the system facilitated dayto-day operations and helped to reduce case processing delay, and how 

the system affected individual roles of court staff. As many of those 

interviewed had been involved in the court for many years, interviews 

also focused on how current case processing information systems 

had altered day-to-day operations and facilitated timely handling 

of delinquency cases compared with their former methods of court 

administration, many of which are still being used by juvenile courts 

nationwide. As such, data from these interviews may inform other 

jurisdictions not only on best practices to reduce delay, but on how 

to make the transition to more technologically driven, effective case 

management systems.

The juvenile court in Hamilton County was selected for two main 

reasons. First, the state of Ohio is considered a leader in addressing the 

issue of case processing delay and Hamilton County was noted by Ohio 
Delays in Youth Justice 78

State Supreme Court administration as being particularly effective at 

reducing delay and processing cases within timeframes established 

by the State. This is particularly noteworthy given that this is a large, 

urban county with heavy caseloads. Second, Hamilton County is one of 

a growing number of jurisdictions that manages its court dockets using 

a highly advanced information system. At a minimum, automated 

systems have the potential to reduce case processing times through 

automatic calendaring, which helps keep cases moving within state or 

locally imposed time frames. As exemplified by the Hamilton County 

Juvenile Court, automated information systems can also strengthen 

overall day-to-day court operations and lead to greater efficiency 

throughout the entire court.

The Family Division of the 17th Circuit Court of Kent County was 

selected because, like Hamilton County, Kent County is recognized as 

a state-wide leader in case delay reduction efforts. Yet, Kent County 

can be thought of as more labor intensive, operating a computerized, 

but not fully automated, information system that is widely viewed as 

contributing to timely handling of delinquency cases. Kent County was 

also selected because of strong local culture and administrative practices 

centered specifically on the goals of monitoring and evaluating case 

processing time, providing internal evaluation, and reducing the time 

that the court takes to process youth through the system. 

The research team selected Peoria County, Illinois as an example of 

a smaller juvenile court with limited resources that does not rely on 

an advanced computerized case management system, as seen in the 

other two jurisdictions described here. In addition, unlike the other 

states represented here, Illinois has taken a less aggressive approach 

to reducing case processing delay. Yet, keeping delinquency cases 

moving is central to Peoria County Court staff and processing delays 

are kept to a minimum.

Hamilton County, Ohio 

Delinquency cases in Hamilton County fall under the jurisdiction of 

the Hamilton County Juvenile Court, which also handles dependency, 

paternity/child support, juvenile traffic, custody, visitation, failure to 

send, tending to cause, and contribution to child’s delinquency cases. 

Hamilton County is a large, urban jurisdiction (including the city of 

Cincinnati) that handles nearly 20,000 delinquency filings each year.7 

After peaking in the late 1990s, delinquency filings have generally 

been on the decline, with just over 18,000 delinquent filings in 2005. 

7. Hamilton County Juvenile 

Court: Delinquency Filings Since 

1999.
Delays in Youth Justice 79

The Hamilton County Juvenile Court is directed by two judges and 

26 appointed magistrates who preside over daily case management, 

including plea and trial hearings in delinquency cases. Dispositions 

are determined by magistrates, with decisions subject to review and 

approval by the assigned judge. The court also employs case managers 

to assist in court proceedings. Both magistrates and case managers are 

assigned to cases following a rotating schedule. In addition to the court 

administrator, the court employs an executive director of docketing/

case management, Ms. Melinda Klenk, who supervises 89 staff 

members, including service clerks, complaint clerks, deputy clerks, 

and case managers. Ms. Klenk has been with the Hamilton County 

Juvenile Court for 30 years. Her experience with and knowledge of 

both historical and current staff, case processing practices, and the case 

management system have contributed to the high level of efficiency 

that characterizes the court. Interviews with court staff revealed a high 

degree of respect for Ms. Klenk. 

Efforts to Reduce Delay

Ohio is a leader in efforts to reduce case processing delays and Hamilton 

County is one of the state’s most efficient jurisdictions. The Supreme 

Court of Ohio’s case management section encourages the development 

of new approaches to case flow management and delay reduction. 

Local courts regularly report case processing statistics, including 

number of cases pending past time guidelines, to the case management 

section of the supreme court (for an example of the form used by local 

judges and courts in statistical reporting to the State, see Appendix A). 

The Supreme Court also requires local courts to submit a yearly case 

management plan. 

The Hamilton County Juvenile Court adopted a case management 

plan establishing time frames for the disposition of delinquency cases, 

including time for services (Table 8). The court allows continuances 

upon showing of good cause. Continuances should be no longer than 

necessary, should be granted with the youth present, and can be no 

longer than 14 days. Hamilton County’s efforts to reduce delay are not 

merely a response to State requirements. The importance of processing 

time has a long history in the Hamilton County Juvenile Court. While 

many courts have begun to focus on case processing time due to the 

implementation of state statutes, a culture of case flow management 

has been established for many years in Hamilton County. 

Ohio is a leader 

in efforts to 

reduce case 

processing 

delays and 

Hamilton 

County is one 

of the state’s 

most efficient 

jurisdictions. 
Delays in Youth Justice 80

Court staff members in Hamilton County recognize the importance of 

timeliness and take pride in their efforts:

“Everyone always talks about detention admission models, 

but not at how long it takes kids to get into the courtroom. 

I think case processing is wrapped up in everything you do. 

We’ve always given it a larger role; it wasn’t an afterthought. 

The fact that each case has an urgency and can’t just sit is 

important.” – Mark Reed, Court Administrator

“Timeliness has always been a concern. I’m not sure why that 

has always been. It gives me a great sense of pride when I see 

how other courts operate. I always walk out of there feeling 

good about where I work.” – John Cullum, Chief Deputy 

Clerk

Table 8: Time frames for processing of detained and nondetained delinquency cases: Hamilton County.*

Event Deadline Triggering Event

Detained Cases

Detention hearing 72 hours (or next court 

business day)

Placement in detention

Relinquishment of 

jurisdiction hearing (if 

appropriate)

3-15 days Detention hearing

Dispositional hearing (If 

youth admits to charges or 

is adjudicated after trial)

Immediately

Trial (if youth denies 

allegations)

15 days Filing of charges**

Final disposition 90 days Date of initial custody

Not-Detained Cases

Plea hearing 21-25 days Date complaint is filed

Dispositional hearing (If 

youth admits to charges)

Immediately (or within 21 

days as appropriate)

Trial (if youth denies 

allegations)

30 days Plea

Final disposition 6 months Adjudication

* Information reproduced from “Rules of Practice of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court” 

 May 2006, located online at http://www.hamilton-co.org/juvenilecourt.

** Unless youth is not arrested immediately upon filing of the charge, whereupon a trial will 

 be held within 10 days of placement in detention. 
Delays in Youth Justice 81

“We have always been aware of it [case processing]. I 

haven’t seen much of a change in our culture in the 30 years 

I’ve worked here except for the increase of offenses involving the use of weapons ” – Melinda Klenk, Executive Director of Case Management

Changes in Delinquency Case Processing

Although Hamilton County has a long history of attention to 

timeliness, delinquency case processing has undergone a transition in 

the past decade from a labor intensive, manual entry system to a highly 

sophisticated and efficient automated case management system. 

Prior to implementation of the automated case management system, 

case processing notes were all hand written by judges and magistrates. 

Clerks then transcribed the judge and magistrate notes into a journal 

book. This system was used from the 1940s through 1989. In 1990, 

clerks started entering hand-written notes into the Regional Computer 

Information Center (RCIC) computer system. This system still relied, 

however, on clerks to decipher judge and magistrate notes which could 

result in errors, as well as in double-entries. (For an example of a handwritten entry, see Appendix B). 

In addition, scheduling of cases was conducted by hand, with case 

proceedings entered in a magistrate’s docket book. Magistrates did 

not have control of their docket; rather a docketing clerk would hand 

write case numbers, names, times, and charges next to an open time 

slot in the Magistrate’s docket. Time slots were created three months 

in advance and tracked on sets of loose-leaf paper for each magistrate. 

Delinquency cases in Hamilton County are currently processed through 

an automated system called the Juvenile Case Management System 

(JCMS). The system took two years to build and was implemented 

in October 1999 with no testing period for magistrates. Deputy clerks 

and other clerks received training. Unlike other computerized case 

management systems, JCMS completely automates every stage in case 

processing. 

Complaints are entered into JCMS by clerks. Upon entry, JCMS will 

automatically assign a case number, generate an initial court date (that 

falls within case management time frames), and print out multiple copies 

of summonses. Each summons has the name of a case manager at the 

bottom of the document. If there is a scheduling conflict, the attorney 

is responsible for resetting the initial date. When a case is entered, 

the clerk can also enter information into the system, such as address, 
Delays in Youth Justice 82

guardian, victim information, or whether weapons were used in the 

offense. This information can be updated throughout the proceedings. 

The clerk is also able to bring up prior violations from the system and 

link the case to co-defendants. There is one complaint clerk within the 

clerk’s office and several complaint clerks in the Intake Department of 

the Youth Center. There are 50–60 cases entered per day on average. 

Initial case hearings are assigned to the first available time in JCMS. 

The executive director of case management loads dates for only 90 

days, so as not to allow cases at any stage of the court process to be 

scheduled past the appropriate time frame. A scratch docket, printed 

via JCMS, can be accessed by magistrates and other court staff to show 

the daily case schedule. As with the hand-written scratch docket used 

prior to 1999, this docket shows case names, numbers, charges, times, 

and schedule types for each Magistrate. The case manager and other 

service providers (e.g. probation, parole, social worker, etc.) are also 

printed on the docket. 

JCMS in intricately tied to the court process, with computers located in 

each courtroom, including one computer for each magistrate and one for 

each case manager. Each has his/her own screen. For example, within 

the case manager’s screen, there is a menu for scheduling dockets, 

generating notifications, verifying services, finding or canceling 

court dates, or updating case information (e.g. school attendance, 

employment, medical history, relationships). The case manager also 

has access within JCMS to a check-in screen that shows when parties 

have checked in at reception. This increases efficiency by providing 

the courtroom with up-to-date information on the arrival of parties. 

From the scratch docket, magistrates enter the appropriate case number 

into JCMS, which brings up case information. During the hearing, 

magistrates can enter notes from the proceedings into JCMS.

If a continuance or additional hearing is necessary, scheduling is 

conducted in the courtroom. Case managers will find the first available 

date offered by JCMS to schedule subsequent events. If this date does not 

work for parties, the next available date will be found by JCMS. Dates 

are only loaded for a 90-day period. Magistrates and case managers are 

unable to override the system to schedule events outside of this time 

frame. Separate screens are available in JCMS to schedule companion 

cases—e.g., when the youth has other complaints filed or other youth 

were involved in the case. Because such cases are connected in JCMS, 

they can easily be scheduled on the same date to increase efficiency 

in the processing of these cases and allow youth and families to make 

court appearances on one day.
Delays in Youth Justice 83

Copies of orders and decisions that are produced during the hearing are 

printed from JCMS in the courtroom. For example, a magistrate will 

enter information into JCMS during the hearing and generate an entry 

(orders/decisions). The entry, created as a word document, starts with 

standard text entered by the magistrate. JCMS recognizes the boiler 

plate language and generates the appropriate paragraph. When this 

entry is completed, it is printed automatically, signed by all parties, 

and then attached to the scratch docket. A bar code is automatically 

attached to each entry, virtually eliminating the chance for error in 

recording case information and linking documents across a case.

Every case on the scratch docket must have an entry (orders and 

decisions), printed out from JCMS. Although all necessary scheduling 

and printing of documents is completed in the courtroom, magistrates 

are responsible for placing their clipped orders into a bin at the end 

of the day. All orders are then scanned the next morning by a clerk. 

Decisions are sent to the judge for signature. In addition, any summons 

or notice of continuance is generated through JCMS during the hearing 

and printed in the courtroom. Unlike orders, however, notices are 

scanned in the courtroom. When a continuance generated, a TIF file 

is automatically created and scanned. This feature was developed due 

to the realization by court staff that the process of scanning notices, 

summons, and citations was taking too long. Thus, the feature of 

automatically creating a TIF image to be used immediately was 

developed within JCMS. Copies of documents for all parties are printed 

in the courtroom.

Efficiency through Court Automation

Hamilton County has been very effective in the timely processing 

of cases, particularly considering the heavy caseload, with 95-96% 

of all cases falling within the State’s time guidelines. Dependency 

cases proved to be the most difficult to process. Court administration 

is very proud of the accomplishments of the jurisdiction, particularly 

given the large caseloads. The automated case management system is 

one of the main reasons for the timeliness displayed by the Hamilton 

County court. The automated system has improved timeliness by 

creating a more efficiency within the courtroom. By integrating 

JCMS fully into court proceedings, information can be inputted and 

outputted immediately. Entries and notices are generated automatically 

and printed in the courtroom. In addition, notices of continuances 

are automatically scanned in the courtroom. This reduces delay of 

subsequent proceedings as parties do not have to wait for paperwork 

The automated 

case management 

system is one of 

the main reasons 

for the timeliness 

displayed by the 

Hamilton County 

court. 
Delays in Youth Justice 84

to be generated. With JCMS also comes a decrease in the chance for 

case processing errors. In particular, the incorrect linking of cases is 

virtually impossible due to the automatic generation of bar codes on all 

entries and court documents. 

Greater efficiency is achieved outside of the courtroom as well, as 

JCMS has made accessing case records easier. For example, prior to 

JCMS, one had to manually search through paper files and the docket 

to find information on a case or specific hearing date. Under JCMS, 

such information can be found immediately in the system, including 

court documents which are scanned and filed electronically as well as 

in hard-copy form.

Although JCMS is primarily a case management resource (e.g. the 

primary function is court operation), the system can also be used as a 

monitoring and evaluation tool. Each magistrate has the same amount 

of time to complete their cases and is assigned the same percentage 

of each case type. JCMS has rules for how long each case should 

take. The case management director can use JCMS to monitor how 

far along into the daily docket each magistrate is and identify which 

magistrates are falling behind in their cases. In addition, JCMS is 

used by the deputy clerk to run monthly case processing statistical 

reports that are distributed to the judges and case management director. 

Having the capability to monitor case processing so easily allows Court 

administration to evaluate the effectiveness of court staff and overall 

case management and to locate where improvements are needed.

JCMS has also become a unified system for purposes of monitoring 

youth in detention and probation. Although only court staff has 

the ability to enter data into JCMS, the system is linked to other 

departments, which increases efficiency as various court players can 

easily access case information. Wireless access to JCMS is particularly 

useful to probation workers, who can pull up the system while in the 

field. The Court is also working on getting JCMS operational in police 

cars so officers can see if there is an open case on a youth. 

The use of JCMS has also affected the courthouse staffing structure. 

Since the implementation of the automated case management system, 

thirteen staff members were lost and have not been replaced, yet 

efficiency in the Court has increased. Thus, although staff is valued by 

the court, more work can be accomplished with fewer staff members 

under the automated system.
Delays in Youth Justice 85

Overcoming Challenges to Automation

The transition to an automated case management system, although 

improving efficiency, has not been without challenges. JCMS has 

introduced many changes for staff through new job responsibilities 

and re-structuring of courtroom proceedings. For example, during 

the transition to JCMS, court administration faced some resistance by 

magistrates who did not want to enter data into the computer and be 

seen as “clerks.” 

Other staff complaints focus on the physical presence of the computer 

in the courtroom, which is perceived by some as an impediment 

to interactions with youth and families. Because magistrates are 

continuously entering information into the system during proceedings, 

they frequently look down at their keyboards as they enter information 

instead of looking at the parties. Thus, while increasing efficiency, 

the use of computers in the courtroom has the potential to create less 

personal interactions with youth and families.

Hamilton County has worked to overcome these challenges with strong 

leadership and a culture that is supportive of timely case processing. 

Court administration noted the importance of having a good group of 

magistrates who, while resisting somewhat, have now embraced the 

system because of their commitment to timely case processing. Court 

administration also recognizes that simply implementing an automated 

system is not enough to ensure timely case processing. As noted by 

court staff, similar automated systems are in use in other jurisdictions, 

yet have not seen the efficiency achieved by Hamilton County. Courts 

must be committed to the automated system and work hard to achieve 

the benefits to case processing efficiency that such a system allows. 

Another challenge of automation is handling the abundance of 

information it garners. As noted by Ms. Klenk, “Sometimes JCMS has 

too much information; over the years we’ve built report after report.” 

The challenge lies in how to use both the system overall and the data 

that it can provide. Clearly Hamilton County has effectively used JCMS 

as a case management tool to improve case processing timeliness. How 

to best use the reports that the system is capable of generating is less 

clear. 

The transition 

to an automated 

case management 

system, although 

improving 

efficiency, has 

not been without 

challenges. 
Delays in Youth Justice 86

Although not without challenges, Hamilton County has implemented 

an automated case management system that has nearly eliminated case 

processing delays. Automated scheduling ensures that cases are heard 

within established time frames. By fully integrating the automated 

system with courtroom operations, court proceedings have become 

more efficient and magistrates and case managers have immediate 

access to updated case information. Printing and scanning of court 

documents reduces the time required to distribute notices and increases 

the court’s ability to track and manage case paperwork. By using its 

automated system, Hamilton County has not only reduced processing 

delays but created efficiency throughout the entire court system.

Kent County, Michigan 

Prior to 1998, Kent County operated a separate juvenile court and 

circuit court. In 1998, the state legislature created a Family Division, 

under which juvenile delinquency cases are currently heard, within the 

17th Judicial Circuit Court. The Court operates within the one judge/

one family concept and delinquency cases are assigned randomly and 

proportionately across six judges, although the Court does assign repeat 

juveniles and families to the judge assigned in the initial case. Each 

judge is assigned an attorney referee to assist with cases. The referees 

preside over almost all juvenile delinquency preliminary hearings, as 

well as conducting plea hearings, trials, dispositions. According to the 

court’s annual reports, delinquency petition filings in Kent County 

grew approximately 4 percent between 2004 and 2005, reaching 3,906 

filings. 

Efforts to Reduce Case Processing Delay

Attention to the issue of case flow management in the State of Michigan 

increased during the 1980s. During this time, there was a push by 

the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) to create guidelines 

for processing cases, which have been referred to as “standards” by 

some court staff across the state. These guidelines originated, in part, 

as a response to principles created by the National Center for State 

Courts and the need for a tool to determine how many judges should be 

assigned to different types of cases. In addition, there was recognition 

by the Michigan Supreme Court that child protection cases on appeal 

were not being processed in a timely manner and this sparked even 

greater interest in the issue of case delay. 
Delays in Youth Justice 87

In response to the interest in case flow management and the perceived 

need for time guidelines, the Michigan Supreme Court established 

a Caseflow Mangagement Coordinating Committee in 1985 and a 

Caseflow Management Rules Committee in 1989. Based on the work 

of these committees, the Supreme Court implemented a 1991 order, 

Administrative Order 1991-4, requiring trial courts to develop and 

implement case flow management plans, with the primary purpose 

of preventing delay in case processing. A subsequent order in 2003, 

Administrative Order 2003-7, refined and expanded time guidelines and 

required each trial court to adopt a local administrative order describing 

a case flow management plan.8 Following recommendations of the 

SCAO, the Kent County Circuit Courts’ case management plan adopted 

the goals of expediting the disposition of all cases in a manner consistent 

with fairness to all parties, minimizing the uncertainties associated 

with processing cases, assuring equal access to the adjudicative process 

for all litigants, resolving matters guided by what is permissible under 

law by defined standards of service and by balancing the needs of the 

individual and society, and enhancing the quality of litigation. 

To meet the goals of its case flow management plan, the Circuit Court 

established the following objectives:

■ Ensure the continued commitment and leadership of the judges 

by meeting regularly with judges (and other significant parties/

staff, as appropriate) to discuss and make decisions regarding 

issues related to case flow management.

■ Set specific and timely standards for resolution of each case type, 

including the time guidelines as promulgated by the Michigan 

Supreme Court. This includes adhering to a firm, but fair adjournment policy.

■ Monitor and measure a variety of caseload information and use 

this information to meet better the goals of the court’s case flow 

management system.

■ Assign the Deputy Administrator of Management to provide 

oversight and supervision to the broad area of case flow management.

■ Be open to and creative in developing and implementing other 

resources that aid the court in achieving early and continuous 

control over cases, including alternative methods of resolving 

cases.

In addition, as part of the case management plan, the court reviews 

each area of the plan at least annually to ensure it is meeting the stated 

goals and objectives. Each objective is pursued aggressively in Kent 

8. For a history of case flow 

management in Michigan, see 

“Caseflow Management Guide” 

published in 2004 by the State 

Court Administrative Office at 

http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/

resources/publications/manuals/

cfmg.pdf.
Delays in Youth Justice 88

County and this has contributed to increased case flow management 

and improvements in communication between court staff, which helped 

Kent County to become a state leader in case flow management efforts. 

Both the State of Michigan and Kent County recognize the importance 

of judicial leadership in efficient case processing. Kent County 

instituted the practice of holding regular meetings with judges and 

court administrators with the specific goal of discussing and evaluating 

the issue of case processing. Judges meet collectively with the court 

administrator on a monthly basis to discuss case processing and to 

evaluate their performance. Both judges and administration find these 

meetings useful in bringing attention to the issue of case processing 

delay. As one judge noted, the issue of delay is more than just 

following bureaucratic guidelines from the SCAO. Internally focusing 

on timeliness helps the Court to learn about its own effectiveness. 

Increased attention to processing delay has led the Court to develop an 

array of programs (e.g., community probation), and thus can impact the 

court and the youth it serves in ways that extend beyond increasingly 

timeliness.

As part of the case management plan, Kent County adopted the 

guidelines for circuit court case processing put forth by the State Court 

Administrative Office (SCAO). These provide time frames in which 

various stages in a delinquency case should be completed (Table 

9). For the completion of the full case (in terms of adjudication and 

disposition), separate time frames are provided for target percentages 

of all petitions or complaints to be completed. 

In addition to adopting the time standards recommended by the 

Michigan Supreme Court, Kent County has instituted internal 

performance measures by which the court regularly evaluates itself. 

These performance measures include not only effectiveness at 

improving youth outcomes (e.g. recidivism), but also at effectiveness 

in meeting case processing timeframes. Performance measures of case 

processing timeliness follow from State time guidelines and the time 

standards put forth in the court’s case flow management plan. Kent 

County’s goals are to have 100% of delinquency petitions disposed 

within the stated time frames (e.g. 100% disposed of within 98 days for 

detained cases and within 210 days for non-detained cases). 

Kent County 

instituted the 

practice of 

holding regular 

meetings with 

judges and court 

administrators 

with the specific 

goal of discussing 

and evaluating 

the issue of case 

processing. 

Judges meet 

collectively 

with the court 

administrator on 

a monthly basis 

to discuss case 

processing and 

to evaluate their 

performance. 
Delays in Youth Justice 89

SCAO recommendations for case management plans included the 

implementation of a case management system to monitor case progress, 

generate various reports for measuring activities and procedures, and 

generate reports showing compliance with time guidelines. In 2004, the 

Kent County Circuit Court launched a computerized case management 

system, called CourtView. The system was developed for use in 

criminal, civil, delinquency, and family cases in Kent County, as well 

as Macomb and Ingham Counties in Michigan. Previously, the court 

operated a Juvenile Information Systems and Records Administration 

(JISRA) for approximately 20 years.

Table 9: Timeframes for processing juvenile delinquency 

cases: Kent County, Michigan.

Event Deadline (Goal%) Triggering Event

Detained Cases

Preliminary hearing 24 hours Placement (exclude 

Sundays & holidays)

Pre-trial conference (if 

necessary)

28 days Initial preliminary inquiry

Formal hearing 28 days Plea

Non-contested hearing 28 days Authorization of petition

Contested hearing 42 days Authorization of petition

Adjudication and disposition 84 days (90%)

98 days (100%)

Pre-trial conference

Non-Detained Cases

Initial preliminary inquiry 20 days Assignment of case to 

intake 

Pre-trial conference (if 

necessary)

28 days Initial preliminary inquiry

Formal hearing 42 days Plea

Non-contested hearing 42 days Authorization of petition

Contested hearing 56 days Authorization of petition

Adjudication and disposition 119 days (75%)

182 days (90%)

210 days (100%)

182 days (90%)

Formal hearing for sexual 

offenses

56–70 days Authorization of petition
Delays in Youth Justice 90

CourtView operates as somewhat of a hybrid system, combining 

computerized inputs and outputs with labor intensive practices. 

CourtView is used to facilitate court operations and perform some case 

management functions, though something less than a fully automated 

system. Data are mostly entered manually, often by clerks. Although 

efforts are made to stay within time guidelines, scheduling is still based 

on the availability of the particular judge or referee rather than being 

set automatically within appropriate timeframes as is the case with 

Hamilton County’s automated system. 

A function of the CourtView system is to monitor and evaluate case 

processing. The decision to use CourtView was partially made in 

response to the SCAO’s case tracking requirements of circuit courts. 

CourtView allows the Court to track time intervals of delinquency cases 

and to generate case management reports by individual judges or date 

parameters. For example, CourtView generates a “Circuit Court Age at 

Disposition and Pending Case Age” report, which shows how old cases 

are by judge and by case type for both dispositional and pending cases. 

Such reports are used to meet SCAO requirements and are provided to 

SCAO on a yearly basis.

Reports are also generated for internal monitoring and evaluation by 

judges and Court administration. CourtView is used to generate a 

monthly “Delay Days” report provided to each judge. This report shows 

case processing statistics by judge, including the average number of 

days from case assignment to date of first hearing set before the judge. 

CourtView is also used to generate a monthly juvenile caseload chart, 

which reports statistics on the number and percentage of petitions 

authorized and the number and percentage of pending cases for each 

judge. In addition to information garnered from reports, judges can 

use the CourtView system to look at their calendars and search for 

cases that are either approaching or have already exceeded guidelines. 

These practices exemplify Kent County’s awareness of the importance 

of case processing timeliness, not only to meet state requirements, 

but to pursue a genuine interest in self-evaluation and commitment to 

reducing delays. 

Although monitoring and evaluating timeliness appears to be an 

important use of the system, CourtView does have case management 

functions across the entire docket. The system provides tools for court 

management, records, scheduling, and financing (e.g. collecting fines 

and fees). Judges in Kent County have computers in court and on their 

desk tops, which allows for greater control of individual dockets, but 

Judges in Kent 

County have 

computers in 

court and on 

their desk tops, 

which allows for 

greater control 

of individual 

dockets, but 

the automated 

system is 

not as fully 

integrated into 

the courtroom 

as is the case in 

Hamilton County. 
Delays in Youth Justice 91

the automated system is not as fully integrated into the courtroom 

as is the case in Hamilton County. The system is also used by the 

case management manager to monitor timeliness, schedule events, 

and identify data entry errors. The court is working now to develop 

an imaging system with a workflow component for court and legal 

documents within CourtView.

As part of its efforts to improve case flow management, the Kent 

County Circuit Court recognized the need for direct oversight of 

case processing. As such, court staff developed a case management 

department that works closely with the deputy administrator of court 

management. The deputy administrator was involved in the adoption 

of the CourtView system and is responsible for generating reports on 

case processing times, clearance rates, and caseload statistics using 

CourtView.

In addition to the implementation of a case management system and 

department, the court has made available a variety of resources to help 

control cases. These include both internal court practices and statutory 

orders.9 For example, the use of attorney referees helps to keep cases 

moving. In addition, referees are assigned to cases and assigned to 

a family division judge based on a one-judge-one-family concept. 

Court staff noted that this practice improves efficiency because judges 

and referees are already familiar with the youth and his/her family. 

Alternative methods for disposing cases are also used to control case 

processing. This includes the use of various forms of diversion from the 

formal docket to ensure judges and referees hear only cases requiring 

formal court attention.

In general, delinquency cases in Kent County are processed efficiently 

and adhere to the time standards adopted by the court. Generally, 

the time span between when the delinquent incident occurs and an 

arrest is made is a couple of days at most. If the juvenile is placed 

in detention, the time span between arrest and the receipt of the 

petition by the prosecutor’s office from the police is typically the same 

or next day, and about 5 days or less for juveniles not in detention. 

The charge is authorized by the Prosecutor within 2 days or less, and 

typically the same or next day if the juvenile is in detention. An intake 

probation officer is assigned to the case within a week or less from 

the date the court receives the petition and the first intake appointment 

is made within 10-12 days of the intake officer being assigned. The 

authorization of the petition, potentially a lengthy stage in the process, 

can span anywhere from a few days to a month or more depending on 

the various court players and failure by the juvenile and family to appear 

at the first appointment. Scheduling and holding pretrial conferences, 

9. For a complete list of case flow 

management resources, see Local 

Administrative Order 2004-12. 
Delays in Youth Justice 92

an increasingly common event, can also be quite lengthy, with many 

taking 6-8 weeks to be scheduled. The first hearing with the judge is 

generally scheduled from 45-55 days from the pretrial conference. 

Thus, the entire delinquency case process takes anywhere from 75 to 

150 days, which generally falls within the time standards adopted by 

the court. According to Jack Roedema, court administrator, pretrial 

conferences contribute significantly to the longer cases and cases not 

meeting the time standard. 

In terms of performance measures, however, the court has fallen short 

of goals in recent years, particularly for cases that are detained (see 

Table 10). Although 90 percent of detained cases were disposed of 

within the 98-day time frame in 2002 and 2003, that figure dropped 

to 83 percent in 2004 and only 74 percent in 2005. This may be due 

to an increase in pretrial conferences for detained cases, which can 

significantly delay case processing. Court officials also note that the 

Kent County system was affected by staffing shortages during these 

years, especially in judicial personnel. 

Factors that Contribute to Timely Case Processing

Whereas many courts address the issue of case timeliness in response 

to state imposed guidelines or statutes, Kent County has adopted a 

local culture that stresses self-evaluation and internal performance 

measures. This indicates a true commitment by the court to evaluate 

practices and performance continually in order to reduce case delay. In 

many ways, identifying the desire to reduce delay, establishing internal 

performance measures, and monitoring performance are the first steps 

toward improving case management timeliness. For courts that do not 

have the resources to acquire and implement technologically advanced 

case management systems, Kent County’s strategy of continual selfevaluation may be an effective approach for reducing case delay. 

The case management functions of CourtView appear to have 

improved the efficiency of day-to-day case processing. As an example, 

one of the biggest obstacles to timely case processing, according to the 

Prosecutor’s Office, is notification of court events to victims. Because 

hearings cannot be held without notifying the victim, it is crucial that 

victim notification occur promptly. When a petition is authorized, it is 

entered into Courtview and the system automatically generates a notice 

to the victim. CourtView expedites events such as authorizing petitions 

and notifying victims. According to Vicki Seidel of the prosecutor’s 

office, “cases don’t get lost [with CourtView] like they used to.” Snags, 

such as delayed authorization of petitions and not notifying victims, 

have been improved by CourtView.

For courts that 

do not have 

the resources 

to acquire and 

implement 

technologically 

advanced case 

management 

systems, Kent 

County’s strategy 

of continual selfevaluation may 

be an effective 

approach for 

reducing case 

delay. 
Delays in Youth Justice 93

Another feature that makes CourtView particularly useful in terms of 

efficiently processing cases is the system’s integration across the Court 

and other criminal and juvenile justice departments and agencies. For 

example, the Prosecutor’s Office has a module of CourtView, which 

allows the office to access certain portions of the CourtView system. 

For example, if the Court scheduled a case and it is adjourned, a 

system note is sent via CourtView to the prosecutor informing them 

to call witnesses. Before this system integration, prosecutors would 

have to call the court to ask the status of hearing adjournments. This 

integrative aspect of CourtView was noted by multiple court staff as 

having increased communication between departments, which in turn, 

facilitates case processing.

Although the CourtView system has increased efficiency and aids in 

case processing management and evaluation, one must be cautious 

for the potential of user error. Clerical errors are one disadvantage 

of the CourtView system. For example, a scheduler can erroneously 

enter initial petition dates, orders of disposition, etc. Such errors are 

often caught when case management reports are generated. Thus, it 

is important that courts using a system such as CourtView provide 

adequate oversight. 

The case flow management plan and day-to-day operating practices 

illustrate Kent County’s commitment to improving the timeliness of 

cases, both through adherence to state guidelines and the development 

of a strong local culture that stresses self-evaluation. Although 

automated case management systems have great potential to reduce 

delay, Kent County serves as an example of how courts can effectively 

address case delay concerns without such technology.

Table 10: Performance measures for case processing 

timeliness: Kent County, Michigan

Year of Disposition

Performance Indicators 2002 2003 2004 2005

Percent of delinquency petitions 

(in custody) disposed within 98 

days (Goal is 100%)

90% 90% 83% 65%

Percent of delinquency petitions 

(not in custody) disposed within 

210 days (Goal is 100%)

100% 100% 100% 95%

Note: Data are not perfectly consistent across all years. Percentages before 2005 were calculated 

using samples and may have yielded higher than actual percentages.
Delays in Youth Justice 94

Peoria County, Illinois

Peoria County falls within the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court in Illinois, 

which also includes the counties of Marshall, Stark, Putnam, and 

Tazewell. Two judges conduct juvenile cases; one judge hears cases 

of abuse and neglect and one hears cases of juvenile delinquency. The 

court receives between 450-600 new juvenile delinquency petitions 

annually. In 2006, for example, there were 462 petitions filed, 220 

petitions dismissed, and 351 cases adjudicated. All juvenile delinquency 

cases are screened by the State’s Attorney. As part of the Illinois 

Juvenile Crime Act, the state established statutes for case processing 

time frames (Table 11).10 Additional extensions are allowed by law for 

certain cases.

Although the court follows all Illinois statutes for detained cases, there 

has been little tracking or evaluation of processing times. A recent 

grant, however, required the Court to track case time from incident 

to disposition. According to the State’s Attorney, the court improved 

greatly during the grant period, with increased efforts to stay within 

timeframes. Aside from this grant, no other tracking of case processing 

times has been conducted in the overall court, although the probation 

department does track cases internally.

The judge overseeing all juvenile delinquency cases receives an 

electronic summary of pending cases each morning. This file includes 

relevant case information, including the age of each case (in days) to 

date, sorted with the oldest cases listed first. In this way, the judge can 

quickly identify cases that are lagging. 

10. The analysis focuses on 

detained cases because these 

cases are considered by the Court 

to be most important in terms of 

following statutory time frames. 

Table 11: Time frames for processing of detained 

delinquency cases: Peoria County, Illinois. 

Event Time Triggering Event

Detention Hearing 40 hours Arrest (excluding Saturdays, 

Sundays and holidays)

 Trial 30 days Detention (45 days if 

necessary for drug testing 

and 120 days for DNA 

testing)

70 days Detention (when charges 

involve specific violent 

offenses–e.g., homicide, 

sexual assault, aggravated 

criminal sexual abuse)

Sentencing Hearing 30 days Trial (15 day extension 

request allowed)
Delays in Youth Justice 95

Case Management System

Case management in Peoria’s juvenile court is largely paper-driven. 

The court does operate a mainframe system, but it is very limited. 

The court is currently undertaking a major project to determine what 

software will meet the court’s needs in order to develop an integrated 

court system to replace the current mainframe system. The new system 

is intended to serve as a case management and reporting tool, with the 

ability to compile data and respond to timeliness. 

Challenges to Timely Case Processing

As in most jurisdictions, having adequate staffing is critical to timely 

case processing. Peoria’s juvenile court has received additional public 

defenders and assistant states attorneys from the county in recent 

years. The court itself, however, suffered staff cuts in the probation 

department, both from the state and the local jurisdiction. During the 

last decade, Probation and Court Services lost a third of its staff. The 

average caseload is approximately 70 cases per probation officer; with 

the ideal standard being 25:1. The loss of probation staff is particularly 

problematic because the juvenile court in Peoria County (as estimated 

by probation staff) has 2-4 times as many youth on probation as other 

jurisdictions of similar size.

The loss of staff decreased the court’s ability to get a timely history and, 

therefore, can impact case processing timeliness. For example, with 

only two probation officers that conduct investigations, difficulties arise 

in tracking down reluctant clients, which can lead to continuances that 

delay a case. Additionally, because probation officers must be in court, 

this takes time away from writing reports and meeting with families. 

Additional probation supervisors or probation officers to attend court 

hearings while investigators are in the field would improve probation 

efficiency. Staff reductions also affect the quality of the overall process 

and the ability to refer children to appropriate services. For example, 

probation officers used to refer children to service providers directly, 

taking the time to develop a rapport with children and families and to 

make introductions to service providers. Now, they must now act more 

as “service brokers.” 

Managing Case Delay

In light of the limited resources and the cuts in probation staff more 

specifically, the probation department has implemented innovative 

Case management 

in Peoria’s 

juvenile court is 

largely paperdriven. 
Delays in Youth Justice 96

strategies to ensure cases keep moving. Whereas the court in general 

uses a paper-driven case management system, probation has developed 

an internal automated access database. This system was developed 

by the chief of juvenile probation to speed up the court system 

for probation. The system was designed to aid the department in 

documenting probation services and to facilitate the work of probation 

officers. All service referrals are entered into the system, and therefore, 

can be easily accessed and tracked. Because the system can provide 

immediate caseload, service, and placement information, it is useful 

as a decision support tool. Probation officers considering placements 

can use the system to obtain information about the potential placement 

or service. The system also provides the probation department with 

oversight and accountability. With limited resources and department 

budget cuts, the development of this system was possible only due to 

the initiative of probation staff. 

In addition to the resourcefulness of the probation department, timely 

case processing appears to be a function of the overall culture and 

history of the court. Timely processing of cases is largely a function 

of the judge, who dictates the movement of cases (as opposed to other 

jurisdictions with automated systems), and does so efficiently. The 

court also has a small staff with long tenure. This stability aids in the 

court’s overall ability to handle cases in a timely manner. As noted 

in other jurisdictions, the simple geography of courtrooms can impact 

case processing. In the past year, the Court relocated the juvenile abuse/

neglect and juvenile justice courtrooms to be next to each other. One 

reason for this move was so to keep attorneys closer to the courtrooms 

for which they needed to be available. 

Peoria County is an example of a small court with limited resources 

that manages to address case processing delays with relatively simple 

methods. Yet, the experiences of the court also illustrate the benefits of 

adequate funding for staff and for information management systems, 

such as that developed by the probation department. Resources, however, 

must also be coordinated. As noted by staff, adding another Assistant 

State Attorney as a charging assistant would be helpful, but could 

simply result in more written complaints. Conversely adding another 

courtroom would not increase timely processing without providing 

funding to increase staff as well. Resources must be distributed and 

allocated across the court as a whole.

Peoria County is 

an example of a 

small court with 

limited resources 

that manages 

to address case 

processing delays 

with relatively 

simple methods. 
Delays in Youth Justice 97

Discussion 

These three case studies point to two common themes that seem to be 

critical for success, regardless of a jurisdiction’s characteristics and the 

configuration of its case management system. First, as mentioned by 

many previous studies, success in addressing court delay requires a court 

culture that is committed to case management. Hamilton County’s case 

management system helps to eliminate unwanted delay because court 

events are scheduled automatically to comply with time standards, but 

the system continues to operate successfully largely because the Court 

has a long-standing culture that recognizes and values the importance 

of timeliness. Kent County and Peoria County share equally strong 

court cultures, but they must rely on less automated systems. In all 

three jurisdictions, staff members take considerable pride in their 

efforts to reduce delay, which facilitates the successful implementation 

of whatever case management system exists. Commitment from staff 

at all levels is critical, from administrators and judges, to clerks and 

analysts. 

Second, routine and shared communication is vital for any successful 

case management system, regardless of how automated it may be. All 

three courts visited for this study generate regular reports that illustrate 

and compare case processing timeliness, often between courtrooms and 

judges. As is done in Peoria County, it may be sufficient to provide 

judges with a summary of current case information. In courts with a 

larger caseload and more judges, however, it may be beneficial to hold 

monthly or quarterly meetings with a larger management group that 

has formal responsibility for reviewing case processing times. All three 

courts in this study communicated regularly about case processing 

time with staff and judges in particular, which created a sense of 

accountability and stimulated a cultural priority on timeliness. 

The purpose of the court visits conducted for this study was not to 

compare one court with another. The goal of the visits was simply 

to identify a range of successful policies and practices for managing 

delinquency delays. In visiting three very different courts, all with 

positive reputations for their efforts to address processing delays, the 

study identified a number of successful practices. The most striking 

finding from the three case studies is that a variety of practices can be 

successful, depending on the particular court and jurisdiction involved. 

Case management systems can be used effectively to improve practice 

(e.g., helping a court to manage daily work) and to serve as an 

internal monitoring regime (e.g., by generating routine statistics and 
Delays in Youth Justice 98

performance reports). Yet, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to case 

management. The best case management systems are tailored to fit 

each individual court. In large courts, automated systems are probably 

the most efficient and effective way of managing heavy caseloads. In 

smaller courts, more manual approaches may suffice. They key factors 

are that the court has at least some kind of formal process for reviewing 

timeliness, that a wide range of staff participate in the process, and 

that each participant sees his or her role in that process as part of their 

professional duties. 
Delays in Youth Justice 99

Conclusion

Among the many social reform movements that swept the United States 

during the late 1800s and early 1900s, one resulted in the formation of 

separate courts to handle young law violators. Juvenile courts were 

founded at least partly on the belief that young people accused of 

crimes should be handled differently than adult offenders, with less 

formality and in non-adversarial proceedings. At least for the first 60 

years of their existence, juvenile courts had more in common with 

social agencies than they did with trial courts (Rothman, 1980). 

Juvenile courts provided very few procedural protections for youths 

accused of delinquent acts. By the 1960s, however, it was apparent that 

juvenile courts were becoming very similar to criminal courts, with 

an emphasis on culpability and punishment rather than treatment and 

rehabilitation. In a series of important cases beginning in 1966, the 

U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the emerging “just deserts” orientation 

of the juvenile court merited greater legal rights for juveniles. The 

Court acted to increase the standards of evidence used in delinquency 

proceedings and to require States to provide juveniles with a number of 

due process rights, including the right to counsel, the right to confront 

and to cross-examine witnesses, the right to formal notice of charges, 

and the protection against self-incrimination. 

The Supreme Court stopped short, however, and chose not to apply 

all Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights to juvenile court 

proceedings. A right to jury trial in juvenile courts, for example, was 

explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court (McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 

1971). The question of Sixth Amendment speedy trial rights for accused 

juveniles was never addressed by the Supreme Court. 

Concern about the speed of the juvenile court process, however, has 

been growing among legislators, judges, practicing attorneys, court 

administrators, and law enforcement personnel. Some of these concerns 

may stem from an emphasis on due process rights for juveniles. Others 

may reflect an interest in accelerating the imposition of sanctions and 

services on juvenile law violators under the assumption that swift 

actions are more effective than delayed actions. The importance of early 

intervention is an underlying theme throughout the juvenile justice 

literature. Research has shown that while most juveniles referred to 

the juvenile court are referred only once, a substantial number (roughly 

40%) recidivate prior to reaching the age of majority (Snyder and 
Delays in Youth Justice 100

Sickmund, 2006). The probability of subsequent recidivism is related 

to a juvenile’s age at the time of court referral and the number of times 

he or she has been referred previously to the court. Juveniles referred to 

court twice before the age of 16 are far more likely to become chronic 

or persistent offenders. 

If the youth justice system is more effective when it intervenes as soon 

as possible after a youth’s initial arrest, case processing must proceed 

as expeditiously as possible. Unnecessary delays may increase the 

likelihood of a juvenile’s subsequent involvement with the justice 

system as well as the likelihood that the juvenile’s involvement in lawviolating behavior will continue to escalate. In other words, a slow 

process virtually guarantees that many youth will commit more than 

one offense before they receive any sanctions, services, or supports 

from the justice system. 

Minimizing delay in juvenile delinquency cases may be especially 

critical because of the nature of adolescence. The imposition of legal 

sanctions is essentially an attempt to teach offenders that illegal behavior 

has consequences and that anyone who violates the law will be held 

accountable. In order to deliver this message effectively, the juvenile 

court process must fit the unique learning style of adolescents. During 

the years of adolescence, young people experience many developmental 

changes and their experience of passing of time is affected—i.e., three 

months of summer vacation seems like an eternity to a 14-year-old. If 

the juvenile court waits too long to respond to youthful misbehavior, 

the corrective impact of the court process may be greatly curtailed. 

Unnecessary delays in delinquency case processing could undermine 

the performance of the juvenile court, endanger the public safety, and 

cause harm to youthful offenders by preventing prompt initiation of 

rehabilitative services. Yet, very little research is done on the timeliness 

of the juvenile court process and its effect on youth development or 

public safety. The existing literature is inadequate for making informed 

policy recommendations. Practitioners have several decades of material 

to draw upon in studying and improving trial times in criminal and civil 

courts, but there is still little guidance for juvenile court practitioners 

facing the same issues. Some efforts have been made in other countries. 

In the late 1990s, the British government identified juvenile justice delay 

as a primary emphasis of national domestic policy, and English courts 

soon reduced the average time required to process juvenile offenders 

(Home Office, 1997; Shapland et al., 2001). A similar program was 

implemented in Finland after the Ministry of Justice embarked on 

a program to expedite the handling of young offenders (Marttunen, 

2002). 
Delays in Youth Justice 101

The same cannot be said for juvenile courts in the United States. Court 

managers and practitioners in the U.S. have few resources to call upon 

when they need to measure and compare the pace of the delinquency 

process. In fact, prior to this study, only one major research project on 

juvenile justice delay had ever been published in the U.S. (Butts and 

Halemba 1996; Butts 1997). 

Identifying the causes of juvenile justice delay and developing 

effective methods of reducing it requires a deep understanding of the 

juvenile justice system. Solutions cannot simply be imported from 

the criminal and civil courts. Research on juvenile court delay must 

consider the diverse goals of the juvenile justice system and account 

for the unique characteristics of the juvenile court environment. Some 

issues, of course, are the same. In criminal and civil courts, delays 

have been associated with the seriousness of offenses, the prior record 

of offenders, the pre-trial custody status of offenders, the size of court 

caseloads, the ratio of cases per judge, the number and complexity 

of attorney motions, and court policies regarding continuances. Some 

studies have suggested that processing time may be affected by a court’s 

choice of docket management systems (master or individual calendar). 

Other studies have pointed to the lack of adequate information about 

routine case flow and an attitude among court employees that delays 

are normal and to be expected. 

Many aspects of juvenile court delay, however, are unique to the 

youth justice system. The juvenile process is highly individualized 

and extends beyond legal fact-finding. The juvenile court must 

consider the developmental status of juveniles, their relationships with 

family members, and the role of other social institutions involved with 

the youth or family, such as schools, child welfare agencies, and the 

mental health system. Client assessments are more complex, as are 

adjudication hearings, pre-disposition investigations, and dispositional 

options, all of which can aggravate delay. Unlike criminal courts, 

juvenile courts often provide direct services to juveniles and families. 

A considerable portion of the juvenile court’s caseload is handled 

without official action, and much of the court’s work takes place 

before adjudication and disposition. Unless an analysis controls for 

pre-adjudicatory services, in fact, the relationship between processing 

time and recidivism may actually appear to be negative. These aspects 

of the juvenile court’s unique mission color basic concepts about 

delay and justice. 
Delays in Youth Justice 102

Developing and disseminating standard measures of delinquency 

case processing time must be an essential goal for future efforts to 

reduce juvenile justice delays and to establish effective case flow 

management systems for delinquency dockets. After developing a 

common framework for conceptualizing and measuring processing 

time, the nation’s juvenile courts can begin to examine and share 

their expertise about delay reduction and to discuss the best methods 

of implementing efficiency improvements. This study is intended 

to begin such a discussion and to improve awareness of the special 

issues involved in the juvenile court process. The authors hope the 

findings of the study support the efforts of policymakers, practitioners, 

and researchers currently engaged in the important work of improving 

case processing time in juvenile and family courts. 
Delays in Youth Justice 103

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Delays in Youth Justice 114

Appendices
Delays in Youth Justice 115

Appendix A

County __________________________________________ Judge _____________________________________________________

Report for the month of ____________________________________________________, 20 ________

A B C D E F G H I J K T V Delinquency Traffic Dependency, Neglect, or Abuse Unruly Adult Cases Motion for Permanent Custody Custody, Change of Custody, Visitation Support Enforcement or Modification Parentage U.I.F.S.A. All Others TOTAL Visiting Judge

Pending beginning of period 1 0 1

New cases filed 2 0 2

Cases transferred in, reactivated or 

redesignated 3 0 3

 TOTAL (Add lines 1-3) 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4

TERMINATIONS BY: A B C D E F G H I J K T V

Trial by Judge 5 0 5

Trial by Magistrate 6 0 6

Dismissal by party, judge, or prosecutor 7 0 7

Admission to judge 8 0 8

Admission to magistrate 9 0 9

Certification/Waiver granted 10 X X X X X X X X X X 0 10

Unavailability of party for trial 11 0 11

Transfer to another judge or court 12 0 12

Referral to private judge 13 X X X X X X 0 13

Interlocutory appeal or order 14 0 14

Other terminations 15 0 15

 TOTAL (Add lines 5-15) 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16

Pending end of period (Subtract line 16 from

line 4) 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17

 Time Guideline (Months) 6 3 3 3 6 9 9 12 12 3 6 X X

Cases pending beyond time guideline 18 0 18

Number of months oldest case is beyond

time guideline 19 X 19

Number of informal cases (all case types) 20

A B C D E F G H I J K T V

__________________________________________________________________ ______________________

Judge Signature Date

_________________________________________________________________ ______________________

Preparer's name and telephone number if other than judge (print or type) Date

_________________________________________________________________ ______________________

Administrative Judge Signature Date

Date of completion of most 

recent physical case inventory

______________________

THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

FORM D

JUVENILE DIVISION

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

Fax to:

(614) 387-9419

orMail to:

Court Statistical Reporting Section

Supreme Court of Ohio

65 S. Front Street, 6th Floor

Columbus, Ohio 43215-3431
Delays in Youth Justice 116

Appendix B Page 1 of 3
Delays in Youth Justice 117

Page 2 of 3
Delays in Youth Justice 118

Page 3 of 3
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

1313 East 60th Street

Chicago, IL 60637