Youths’ Perceptions of Incentives in Juvenile Probation

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law | 2025, Vol. 31, No. 1, p. 45-55

What Youth Want: Youths’ Perceptions of Incentives in Juvenile Probation

Justin T. Richardson; School of Interdisciplinary Forensics, Arizona State University

Kelsey E. Tom; School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

Adam D. Fine; School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

“Though many studies focus on mass incarceration and the effects of juvenile detention, probation is the most common disposition for juvenile delinquency. In 2019, 65% of youth adjudicated in the juvenile justice system received probation. Once placed on probation, youth receive a variety of requirements such as restitution, drug testing, and community service hours in an effort to hold youth accountable and change. However, this approach is often unsuccessful as further infractions are met with additional sanctions, and it is not uncommon for a youth to be rearrested while still under an officer’s surveillance. In part, this is because punishment, or the threat thereof, alone is often insufficient to motivate individuals to improve their behavior” (p. 45).

“The current study fills a gap in the literature by examining youths’ perspectives on common probation incentives by asking: What do youth believe would motivate them to be compliant on probation? We expect youth to prefer monetary incentives over autonomy- or recognition-based incentives. This difference is due to reward-seeking behavior and inclination toward short-term and monetary rewards peaking in adolescence. Nonetheless, we still expect autonomy-based and recognition-based rewards to motivate youth, just comparatively less so than monetary incentives. Autonomy-based rewards should motivate youth because they leverage adolescents’ increased desire for autonomy and provide an opportunity to enhance their independence. Recognition-based rewards should validate youths’ prosocial efforts and identities during a developmental period where youth are susceptible to social influence” (p. 47). 

“In the sample, youth primarily self-identified as Hispanic (50.51%, n = 248), followed by White (26.48%, n = 130), Black (14.66%, n = 72), and individuals that identified as another or multiple unlisted ethnoracial categories, or as an unlisted ethnoracial group (8.35%, n = 41). Additionally, 79.23% of the sample self-identified as male (n = 389), with 20.16% identifying as female (n = 99) and 0.61% identifying as other (n = 3). Youth were, on average, 16 years old (M = 16.25, SD = 1.31). Youths’ age, gender, and race/ethnicity are consistent with the demographics of all youth placed on standard probation within the county… The items used were drawn from the jurisdiction’s graduated incentive ladder, and the prompt read: “How much would each of the following motivate you to do well on probation?” Then, 10 items were asked of youth, each using the same 5-point Likert-type response scale (1—not at all to 5—a ton). We anticipated three factor-scored variables for the incentives (Table 1). First, the recognition incentive score was created from three items: “the PO telling my family about my positive changes,” “the PO telling the judge/court about my positive changes,” and “the PO telling the victim about my positive changes.” The autonomy-based incentive score was created from five items, such as “fewer meetings with my PO,” “special permission to attend an event (concert, sporting event, etc.),” “getting off of probation earlier,” “having a later official curfew,” and “removing electronic monitoring.” Lastly, a monetary-based incentive score was created from two items: “gift cards (Target, Amazon, or others)” and “reducing my fees/fines.” Higher scores indicate youth find each incentive type more motivating” (p. 47). 

“In this study, youth on probation in a large urban jurisdiction were asked the extent to which a variety of frequently utilized probationary incentives would motivate them. We compared three incentive categories: autonomy, recognition, and monetary. The autonomy incentive category was related to giving youth greater freedoms, such as a later curfew, less meetings with the probation staff, or special permission to attend an event. The recognition-based incentive category was created using incentives related to youths’ probation staff telling the family, judge, or victim about the positive changes the youth had made. The final category, monetary incentives, was comprised of a reduction in fines or fees or receiving gift cards to various stores. Overall, the results from this study contribute to the evidence base for probation practices by showing that youth in this specific jurisdiction do find these three common types of incentives at least somewhat motivating for their success on juvenile probation. Yet, contrary to what some might intuitively expect, findings suggest that youth value recognition-based incentives more than the general categories of autonomy-based and monetary-based incentives. That is, youth were most motivated by incentives in the form of their family, the judge, or the victim hearing about their positive efforts” (p. 50). 

“Our study focused on aggregate preferences. Probation systems could potentially save time and resources by periodically examining—as we did here—what types of incentives youth in that jurisdiction generally tend to prefer. However, we propose that they consider spending time identifying motivating incentives for each individual youth being served. Indeed, within the risk-need-responsivity framework, juvenile justice practitioners seek to reduce the likelihood of recidivism by assessing each youth’s risk of reoffending, the type of rehabilitative treatment needed to reduce said risk, and the specific evidence-based approach designed to lower their chance of recidivism” (p. 50). 

“Lastly, different types of incentives leverage unique aspects of adolescent development to motivate youth. Therefore, rewards can be tailored toward a youth’s individual desire during the treatment process and in response to the youth’s success or needs. In doing so, jurisdictions might better engage youth placed on juvenile probation and reduce the likelihood of youth incurring a technical violation followed by additional hearings and sanctions. Further, such an approach might also reduce the net-widening effect to prevent youth being funneled deeper into the juvenile justice system by failing probation” (p. 51). 

“Within our sample, participants missing all data for at least one key measure had a significantly higher desire for recognition-based incentives compared to the analytic sample. This difference may indicate an even stronger desire for recognition-based incentives than the results indicate. Further, due to the small samples of those missing data on monetary and autonomy-based incentives, it was not possible to determine if there were significant differences between the original and analytic sample. However, again, this does not pose much of a concern, considering only a few youth were missing data on these items. Note that this study utilized a convenience sampling technique of youth on standard probation. This may impact how generalizable these results are to different samples of youth on probation, and the results may not reflect youth on less or more intensive probation types. Additionally, the study could not incorporate youth on probation who were involved in the child welfare system (i.e., dually involved youth), youth who committed sexual offenses, or youth in detention facilities. Those youth may have different developmental needs requiring different approaches to incentivization that warrant further exploration. Further, results may have limited generalizability to jurisdictions with differing demographic compositions. Future studies should consider including a more geographically diverse, multisite sample, as we used a sample in one large county located in the southwestern United States” (p. 52). 

In addition, there were limitations in our measurement strategy. Youth were only surveyed regarding how much they believed the incentive would motivate them, but there may be differences when presented with actual options, such as real monetary rewards. In addition, the type of monetary incentive may matter, as a gift card may not evoke the same response as cash. Moreover, we were not able to control for youths’ socioeconomic status. This is important to note because if a youth’s family is experiencing financial hardship then monetary incentives may be especially motivating if that youth does not have enough money to eat, or if it provides a means of financially supporting their family. Additionally, we drew our items from the jurisdiction’s graduated incentive ladder. However, there are, of course, many different types of possible incentives (e.g., praise directly to the young person, experiences such as tickets to a sporting event or a movie, public transit passes, etc.). Future studies should examine how other types of incentives and other forms of the incentives used in this specific jurisdiction (e.g., cash vs. a gift card) may impact youth” (p. 52).

“Further, while all the youth in the sample are on standard probation, there could still be variability in each youth’s risk level. Because of this, youth with higher risk may be supervised more closely than other youth and thus have an increased desire for autonomy when compared to their low-risk peers. Further research is necessary to contextualize these outcomes and parse such nuances. Finally, future research should consider whether incentive efficacy may vary for some subgroups of youth (e.g., younger vs. older)” (p. 52).