Troubled youths may get chance at treatment

At 17 he is a solidly built 6-footer who flies into rages, his mind haunted by delusions.

His neighbors in Nuu­anu Valley had become familiar with the sound of his voice at full throttle. On the morning of Jan. 28, he showed up at Roosevelt High in hopes of registering for classes at a new school.

The teenager had fled from a psychiatric program, and his mother had called 911 earlier in the day to report him missing. When police arrived at the Roosevelt counselor’s office, he pulled out a kitchen knife and ended up with a bullet in his wrist after a vio­lent struggle.

The highly publicized police shooting and lockdown at the normally calm campus cast a spotlight on adolescent mental health as the Legislature considers a package of juvenile justice bills. The legislation was crafted to help troubled teens get needed mental health and substance abuse treatment early, rather than letting things escalate until violence erupts and they get locked up.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously gave two thumbs up to two bills that would concentrate the use of secure bed space on teens who are a risk to public safety, and give judges and probation officers more tools to get other youth back on track. Both bills are now headed to the Finance Committee.

Deputy Chief Judge R. Mark Brow­ning, who oversees Family Court, told legislators he had recently reviewed cases of 25 youths sent to the correctional facility and found a pattern of missed chances.

"Each one of these individual children came into the system when they were 12, 13 or 14 years old, with minor offenses, and there were a number of different red flags and problems identified by our probation officers," he said. "Eventually their behavior escalated, they all became public-safety threats and they had to be locked up. If we had access to services, if we had the tools when they were 12, 13, 14 years old, we could have saved those kids."

House Bill 2489 would appropriate funds — as yet unspecified — to Family Court and the Office of Youth Services for substance abuse and mental health treatment programs shown to be effective in reducing delinquency. Future savings from reducing the number of teens confined at the Youth Correctional Facility would be redirected to treatment programs.

House Bill 2490 requires a "risk and needs assessment" for youths and referrals for possible treatment. It allows Family Court to divert "status offenders," such as truants, from the justice system, and monitor youths administratively. Before sending youths with minor, nonviolent offenses to the correctional facility, the court would have to specify what risk they pose to public safety. Probation officers would be empowered to levy swift, consistent sanctions, as well as rewards for behavior changes.

A third bill to fund treatment for teens through the Office of Youth Services was approved by the Finance Committee on Friday.

The bills follow the recommendations of the Juvenile Justice Working Group, convened by the governor, chief justice and leaders of the House and Senate last year. The group pulled together 20 stakeholders from government, the courts, law enforcement, prosecution and service providers, and issued its report in December.

The Roosevelt case was top of mind at a public hearing on both bills, although the young man’s name and court records remain confidential because he is a minor. The teen was arrested on suspicion of three counts of attempted murder of a police officer.

He has had schizophrenic and psychotic episodes, entwined with a drug problem, and previous run-ins with the law, according to his attorney, Eric Seitz. He was found unfit to proceed in Family Court on a previous charge and placed in the Queen’s Family Treatment Center as a condition of probation, but he ran away, as he has repeatedly from that and other programs, Seitz said in an interview. There is no secure long-term treatment facility in the islands that can handle his needs, Seitz said.

"If they have a dual diagnosis of mental illness and some sort of an addiction issue, we don’t have any place to treat them," Seitz said. "They get put into a placement or a program that is inappropriate. The situation continues to spiral until something more serious happens, as did here."

Most of the young people confined at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility and at Detention Home are battling demons, whether mental illness, substance abuse or a toxic intersection of the two. While some need to be locked up because they are a danger, the majority are confined for minor, nonviolent offenses.

The Juvenile Justice Working Group found that 72 percent of youths admitted in fiscal year 2013 had nonviolent offenses, and 61 percent of those admitted for new offenses had misdemeanors. The working group estimated that 80 percent of youths in the juvenile justice system are substance abusers.

Each bed at the facility costs $199,320 in taxpayer funds. Locking up minor offenders is not only expensive; it can be counterproductive by pushing up their risk of re-offending, the group found. Nonviolent teens could be safely and more effectively supervised in community-based treatment, if programs were available, it said.

David Hipp, who heads the Office of Youth Services and the correctional facility, said young people in Hawaii are often incarcerated just because there aren’t other options for adolescents with substance abuse and mental problems.

"The Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility has essentially become the de facto mental health and substance abuse facility in the state, but it is a correctional facility designed to meet the criminogenic needs of the kids," he told lawmakers. "Quite frankly, we don’t have the resources."

The legislation won overwhelming support at the public hearing, including the Judiciary, Hono­lulu Police Department, prosecutors in three counties, the public defender’s office, the Office of Youth Services and nonprofit advocates.

The only person to speak against HB 2490 at the hearing was Hono­­lulu Prosecutor Keith Kane­shiro. He called it premature, although he agreed that more treatment programs for juveniles are crucial.

"Before any measures are taken to divert or release more juvenile offenders back into the community, they must have something more to go back to, other than the exact same environment from which they came," Kane­shiro said. "Any efforts to decrease the population of HYCF, without adequate support programs and services in place ahead of time, would be entirely premature and place those juvenile offenders at greater risk of remaining untreated through adulthood, potentially fast-tracking them into the adult criminal system."

Asked to respond, Family Court’s Brow­ning, a former prosecutor himself, assured the committee that "nobody is going to be released who is a threat to public safety."

Judiciary Chairman Karl Rhoads pressed the judge for a ballpark figure of the funding sought. Brow­ning said at least $5 million is needed upfront as an initial investment, with savings to be redirected to treatment later as the head count drops at the correctional facility.

Seitz, the attorney for the Nuu­anu teenager, maintains far more money than that is needed to create the "seamless system of care" that the state was mandated to provide through the federal Felix consent decree so all youths can benefit from their education.

"I appreciate the fact that they are considering these bills, but they are like Band-Aids," Seitz said, adding that he is considering another "Felix-type action."

His client, meanwhile, is back at Queen’s until he can be admitted to an appropriate mainland program.

"He’s a smart kid," Seitz said, adding that he was doing quite well until a couple of years ago. "I think given the opportunity, he could be very successful."

Timothy Ho, chief deputy public defender for the state, sees prompt treatment of substance abuse and mental illness in teens as an investment in public safety.

"People ask, Why not just lock these kids up and keep the community safe?" Ho told legislators. "The problem with that is they age out and become adult offenders."

He added, "If we can concentrate our efforts on reducing the size of that funnel of kids who become adult offenders, this issue of public safety is answered. We are going to have less people who commit crimes as adults. This is a good start."