Troubled youth need treatment, not a prison bed

Devoting more state resources to substance-abuse and mental-health treatment for Hawaii’s most troubled children is an investment in public safety. Effective, early intervention in these young lives is a much better alternative than locking up nonviolent youthful offenders.

Such an approach is ultimately better for the juvenile delinquents, the taxpayers and society as a whole — but it requires a change in thinking in a state where 72 percent of the young people sent to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility are confined for nonviolent offenses, 61 percent of them misdemeanors. Rather than incarcerating these minors, the focus should be on providing intensive treatment that can help them kick drugs and alcohol and reclaim and maintain their mental health — a more likely path to a crime-free future.

Providing this help before disruptive behavior escalates to violence is not being soft on crime, it’s seeking to prevent it.

So we are heartened that major recommendations of the Hawaii Juvenile Justice Working Group, which issued a reform-minded report in December, have gained traction at the state Legislature. Several bills that would improve Hawaii’s juvenile justice system are moving ahead, progress that we applaud and hope culminates with the measures’ passage.

Among them:

» House Bill 2489, which would appropriate funding for substance-abuse and mental-health treatment programs proven to help reduce juvenile delinquency. The funding would go to Family Court and the Office of Youth Services, a division of the state Department of Human Services. Money saved by reducing the number of teenagers confined at the 56-bed Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF) — where each bed costs a whopping $199,320 a year — also would be redirected to treatment programs. The sore lack of intensive treatment programs for adolescents and teenagers in Hawaii, especially on the neighbor islands, means that many juveniles better suited for a less restrictive environment end up at HYCF in Windward Oahu.

» House Bill 2490, which would require that every youth who enters the juvenile justice system undergo a "risk and needs assessment" and be referred for appropriate treatment as warranted. This would allow Family Court to divert status offenders, such as truants, into an administrative system. Probation officers would have the authority to impose swift, consistent penalties for bad behavior, and rewards for positive changes. This valuable alternative recognizes how important it is to divert kids who clearly have the potential to clean up their lives off the track that leads to jail and a permanent criminal record.

» House Bill 2116, which would abolish sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole for minors. Although this change would affect only four current prisoners, according to lawmakers, it is important to codify as a signal that Hawaii is in step with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has invalidated exceptionally harsh sentences for minors in recent years. This bill recognizes that rehabilitation remains the ultimate goal, and is an achievable goal in many cases. Especially for youthful offenders, we should not consider redemption out of reach.

No juvenile offender should be released from custody if he or she poses a threat to public safety.

Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro emphasized that point as the only person to testify against HB 2490 at a recent legislative hearing, while prosecutors from the three other counties and representatives of the state Judiciary, Honolulu Police Department, the public defender’s office, the Office of Youth Services and many others testified in favor.

The 20-member working group included judges, lawmakers, police, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, social workers, educators, health experts and youth advocates — people who are on the front lines of the juvenile justice system and recognize that it is badly in need of reform. It’s clear from their recommendations that the aim is not to free violent offenders, but exactly the opposite: to keep nonviolent status offenders out of HYCF in the first place and to move such defendants currently held there to more appropriate programs.

Achieving that goal requires creating and funding treatment programs that are proven to work. Passing these bills is a good place to start.