NJ parents outraged over law that could imprison them for kid’s behavior

Moms and dads in a New Jersey suburb can be tossed in prison and fined for their badly behaving children — under a bonkers new ordinance that some say strips parents of their rights and potentially sets a “dangerous precedent.”

The new law in Gloucester Township, passed in late July, is called “Minors and Parent Responsibility” and stipulates that parents will be held “accountable for public disturbances caused by” their child, and could go to jail for three months if their kids are found guilty of multiple offenses.

“Parents are feeling pretty outraged,” Alex Bougher, chair of the Bergen County chapter of parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty, told The Post Tuesday. “They’re getting attacked from every angle here.”

The ordinance is the result of a massive brawl that broke out last year among a throng of 500 minors at the Gloucester Township Day and Drone Show, according to NJ.com. Eleven people — including nine teens — were arrested. Three officers were also injured.

The juvenile offenses that fall under the new law are sweeping — there are 28 in total — with “being a disorderly person,” “immorality,” “destruction of playground equipment” and “loitering” joining the likes of assault, mugging, drunkenness and drug dealing.

“If a child is repeatedly found guilty in juvenile court, their caretaker could face up to 90 days in prison and/or a fine of up to $2,000,” Gloucester Township Police said in a recent release clarifying the law.

Police Chief David Harkins told NJ.com that the law consisted of “general legal language” and that parents would receive a warning first for the kids’ bad behavior.

“Our ordinance was actually sampled from other towns,” Harkins said, referring to the Jersey Shore’s Wildwood, which has also seen a spate of crazy teen behavior. “We’re not necessarily the first, but we’re probably the first bigger town to adopt it.”

Gloucester Township is located just eight miles from Philadelphia and has a population of nearly 66,900.

The drastic move has been supported by Mayor David Mayer.

“We have to hold parents responsible,” he told the Courier Post.

Bougher, a mother of three herself, said many parents she’s spoken with feel the law is an overstep — and an alarming move toward stripping away parents’ right to make choices for their own children.

“It’s a very dangerous precedent. Like, this should not be. This should not be,” she said, adding that the new law was also a “contradiction” of policies already in place in the state.

Bougher cited New Jersey public schools’ Policy 5756, a recent guidance which advises teachers not to tell parents if their kids begin identifying as a different gender in the classroom — and to create a “confidential file” of school records to keep hidden from parents.

Policy 5756 is intended to protect transgender students who might be endangered by parents who don’t agree with their identity choice, but Bougher and others see it as an infringement on parents’ freedoms to raise their kids — and a policy that also makes the “Minors and Parent Responsibility” illogical.

“Parents are basically being told that they don’t have rights as parents to know what’s going on with their children,” she said, “but then on the other side, it’s ‘How could you not know what was going on with your children? How come you didn’t step in?’”

“If you’re going to block the parents, how can you blame the parents?” she added.

Nicole Stouffer, one of the organizers of parents’ rights group the New Jersey Project, says the new ordinance on its face doesn’t make sense.

“A 90-day jail sentence is extreme — for parents who maybe have other kids, maybe they have a problem kid,” she said. “Now this person can’t pay their bills and their mortgage or take care of their children? And they’re going to go to jail because they have one child that’s out of control?”

“It’s kind of like a snake eating its tail — nothing is going to get fixed,” Stouffer added.

Stouffer thinks the problem lies in post-pandemic movements to roll back policing — and that cops need to be allowed to intervene and diffuse kids before situations get out of hand.

“We have eliminated powers for the police to maybe do their job,” she said. “It’s just an extreme response to something that’s not being taken care of by the state.”