POUGHKEEPSIE – The Dutchess County Office of Probation and Community Corrections has expanded its Juvenile Pre-Trial Services with Curfew Monitoring, a program where probation officers perform home visits at random for juvenile offenders to ensure they are where they are supposed to be.

The program helps prevent a juvenile offender from violating the terms of probation and potentially winding up in juvenile detention, said county spokeswoman Betsy Brockway.

“Research tells us two things: one, you get better outcomes for young people if they don’t go off to detention, and two,  there is a great cost for the local taxpayers to pay for those detention beds without good outcomes,” she said. “The more likely a young person is involved in the juvenile criminal justice system, the more likely they will end up in the adult system.”

The Curfew Monitoring program can be court mandated, or it can be requested by parents or probation officers if they believe the youth is at risk for violating the terms of their probation.

The program is funded through a $70,000 state grant, which will run for one year and start in January. Brockway said the program will save local taxpayers $200,000.