This report focuses on the critical needs and problems facing juvenile justice efforts nationwide, highlighting eight significant challenges: (1) reducing overreliance on incarceration for non-dangerous youthful offenders; (2) developing a continuum of community-based sanctions and interventions for delinquent but non-dangerous youth; (3) employing research-proven program strategies to reduce delinquency; (4) identifying and intervening intensively with youth at extreme risk for chronic delinquency; (5) providing comprehensive support to youth with behavioral disturbances; (6) ensuring quality treatment and youth development services for incarcerated youth; (7) providing quality education and career development services to help youth outgrow delinquency and assume productive roles in society; and (8) reducing inappropriate detention for youth awaiting trial or pending placement. For each challenge, the report highlights one or more existing programs, policies, or initiatives that show how the challenge can be met successfully at the state and local levels. It notes that such programs not only produce far better outcomes than are commonplace in current juvenile justice systems nationwide, but they also yield vast savings for taxpayers. (Contains 64 endnotes.) (SM)