ABSTRACT
Knowing that underreporting is common, criminal justice administrators have sought measures that do not rely solely on accurate self-report of drug use. One such measure is the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI), Adolescent Form, whose “primary purpose is to serve as an objective screening tool to differentiate substance abusers from nonabusers.” Clearly, if a program planner wished to identify all drug users in this population there would be little need for screening measures such as the SASSI. One could assume that virtually all female juvenile detainees have used one or more soft drugs. However, it may be impractical to expect detention facilities to intervene with all soft drug users; limited resources typically have to be reserved for those youths with the most severe drug problems. Based on the information from the interview and hair analyses, almost all (93 percent) of the female juvenile detainees in the sample had used soft or hard drugs.
