A 1993 law requires that students who have been expelled from one school system because of disciplinary problems involving weapons, violence, or drugs can be excluded from schools elsewhere in Virginia . Another law requires school officials to forward disciplinary records when a student is transferred to a new school system. It lowers from 16 to 15 the age at which juveniles can be sent to adult court for any crime and allows juveniles to receive the same sentences in juvenile courts that adults receive for similar crimes in adult court . When judges were asked which crimes contributed to workload problems in their courts, about 84 percent cited domestic violence, homicide and drug possession as principal contributors. Eighty-six percent indicated that drug sales were the primary contributor to workload problems .
Most crime is related to drug use.
If we don t do something about drug abuse at a very early age, our problems will be insurmountable . The survey is conducted every three years to identify the needs and problems of state and local criminal justice agencies. Statistics Special Report on a survey of murder cases disposed in 1988 indicated that 16 percent of murder victims were members of the defendant's family . A third of family murders involved a female as the killer . Survey findings were drawn from a representative sample survey of state and county prosecutors records.