The proportion of status offense cases involving detention was about the same for males and females in 1997 (table 75). Overall, detention was used in 6% of cases involving males and in 5% of cases involving females. For males, liquor law cases (9%) were more likely than other status offense cases to involve detention; for females, runaway cases (12%) were more likely than other status offense cases to involve detention. The likelihood of detention decreased between 1988 and 1997 for both sexes, with the largest decreases in the runaway and ungovernability offense categories. The use of detention among runaway cases dropped from 28% to 8% for males, and from 24% to 12% for females. The use of detention in ungovernability cases dropped from 15% to 8% for males and from 15% to 6% for females.