Outrage over youth incentives
A trial program in Camden County gives pricey gifts to those who finish probation.
Camden County officials are outraged over a court program that rewards juvenile offenders with gifts such as computers and iPods for completing their probation, according to the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill.
Freeholders issued a news release this week demanding the state courts end the program, which is offered only in Camden County. The statement described the program as a "disgraceful expenditure of taxpayers' funds" that sends the wrong message.
The freeholders said many other children are working hard in school to get good grades or to find jobs to help their families and cannot afford iPods, notebook computers, and similar items.
"For the courts to pay for these luxuries with taxpayer dollars when some taxpayers cannot afford these things for their own kids sends the wrong message about juvenile justice," board spokeswoman Joyce Gabriel said.
A state grant pays the $14,000 annual cost of the incentive program, a one-year pilot effort in Camden County. Gabriel said the county had been told the grant was not expected to be renewed, and added that the freeholders had no involvement in the grant program.
The freeholders' statement, issued Wednesday, said youngsters on supervised probation were serving sentences because they committed offenses and should not receive material benefits. "The focus should be to help them develop into positive contributors of society," the release said.
Michael O'Brien, the Superior Court's trial court administrator in Camden County, has said the program was an effort to reduce the number of youths committed to juvenile facilities. About 1,000 juveniles are on probation in the county, and the New Jersey Council on Juvenile Justice System Improvement approved the incentive program in 2009.
O'Brien has said that for successful completion of probation, 54 juveniles so far had received their choice of a notebook computer, digital camera, MP3, player or television.
Juveniles who behave well during probation intake receive $10 gift cards, can be exempt from curfews, and get written and verbal praise from officials. For the first quarter of compliance, they get $15 gift cards and possible exemption from house arrest.
The rewards are a $20 gift card for the second quarter, a $25 gift card for the third, and a $35 gift card and early termination in the fourth quarter.