This report presents the national standards for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention developed by the Task Force on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention appointed in April 1975. The standards run the spectrum from guidelines for the police in areas such as preventive patrols, issuance of citations, and interrogation to post-dispositional monitoring of persons after release from detention. There are elaborate recommendations for the structuring of the family court, the scope of duties and responsibilities of every component of such court, and criteria to be followed before permitting an endangered child to be removed from the care and custody of parents in the home environment. The report treats at length the subject of preadjudication processing, including areas such as detention, the dispositional hearing itself, and the selection and training of judges and lawyers engaged in the day-to-day handling of cases. There is an entire section of this report devoted to State and local planning and evaluation in the juvenile justice system. Standards in this portion of the report deal with the development of programs that take realistic cognizance of the present situation in a particular region, the data necessary for meaningful decisionmaking, and the establishment of an evaluation research capability. (Author)