Fewer youth are locked up

The number of youth locked up in the state’s Juvenile Detention Facility while their cases are handled in Family Court has plummeted 43 percent in the last three years, reflecting a drop in youth arrests and a concerted effort to reduce unnecessary detention.

The state began to re-examine its approach to youth offenders with the launch in 2009 of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, backed by the Juvenile Justice State Advisory Council and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

"The research shows that if you unnecessarily detain kids, you push them deeper into the juvenile justice system," said Carol Matsu­oka, program specialist at Family Court who coordinates the initiative, known as JDAI. "Institutionalization is harmful for kids. They end up costing the taxpayers more money, and you’re not necessarily making the community safer."

Hawaii has long had one of the lowest rates of juvenile incarceration in the nation, largely because there is not much violent crime in the islands. But for years it has detained teens for minor offenses, such as running away from home. A JDAI self-assessment of the former detention home on Alder Street in 2009 found it woefully lacking, with a crumbling physical plant and punitive use of isolation.

A major goal of the initiative is to ensure that only youth who pose a threat to public safety are detained, since locking up minor offenders before trial can traumatize already troubled kids and because mixing them with more serious violators can be like sending them to "crime school." JDAI also calls for evenhanded and humane treatment of arrested youth.

"The pattern for decades has been that particularly Native Hawaiian girls but also Native Hawaiian boys whose delinquency histories were largely running away from home were held there in great numbers," said Meda Ches­ney Lind, a criminologist who heads the University of Hawaii’s Women’s Studies Department. "That was a very troubling pattern."

More than half of the cases involving juveniles in Hawaii’s Family Court are "status offenses" such as running away or truancy, which wouldn’t be crimes for an adult. Traditionally, those kids were locked up to ensure they showed up in court and ostensibly to protect the public or themselves.

In 2010, Hawaii’s Family Court decided to stop detaining youth solely for status offenses, although they can still be held for probation violations, Matsu­­­oka said. The move has helped push down the number of teenagers admitted to the Juvenile Detention Facility to 672 in fiscal year 2012 from 1,187 three years earlier. The policy change brought the state in line with the advice of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the practice in many other states.

"Oftentimes the default had been locking them in detention even though everybody agreed that wasn’t the best place to provide mental health treatment or services for youth who ran away or didn’t go to school," said Judy Cox, the team leader with the Annie E. Casey Foundation who monitors Hawaii.

"We want to work with them within the family and communities without negatively impacting public safety," she said. "We are using assessment tools that help us predict who will come to court and who would re-offend if we release them. Hawaii should be very proud of the work it’s done in this initiative."

While some observers might fear that detaining fewer juvenile offenders could threaten public safety, the youth who avoided detention were not dangerous. And serious crime by teens in Hawaii actually dropped substantially over the same period.

Juvenile felony petitions statewide in Family Court have fallen 45 percent to 841 in 2012, down from 1,546 in 2009, according to the Juvenile Justice Information System. Juvenile arrests for all offenses show a similar downward trend, dropping to 9,299 statewide in 2011 from 13,608 in 2008, the most recent data from the Department of the Attorney General show.

Instead of locking up runaways, Family Court is using other techniques, including electronic monitoring and home supervision. A reporting center was opened on the Leeward Coast to offer kids a place to check in and get services in the community. The Office of Youth Services has also launched intensive monitoring programs and a day treatment center.

"We want to make sure that the kids that do need help who come in contact with the system are getting the right kind of help, that they are screened properly and are placed in various programs," said Wally Lau, a member of the Juvenile Justice State Advisory Council who serves on the executive committee for the initiative.

The Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation documented a 37 percent decline in juvenile incarceration across the country from 1997 to 2010 in its February report, "Reducing Youth Incarceration in the United States." Hawaii had the second-lowest rate in the country, after Vermont, in both of those years.

Across the nation, 225 out of every 100,000 juveniles were behind bars in 2010, the lowest rate in 35 years. In Hawaii the figure was 90 juveniles per 100,000. Those figures include kids held before trial and those sentenced for their offenses.

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative is active in 180 jurisdictions in 35 states, Matsu­oka said. In Hawaii it brought together a team of stakeholders who have worked to reduce unnecessary detention and dramatically improve conditions for detainees. In 2010 the new Hale Ho‘o­malu Juvenile Detention Facility opened in Kapo­lei, offering a fresh start.

"They identified that we had been very punitive," said Rockne Maunu­pau, superintendent of the Juvenile Detention Services Branch. "That’s changed a whole lot. I encourage my people to look at their jobs not as guards, but promoting healing, treatment, helping and guiding."

"Our children are just troubled kids," he added. "They come from dysfunctional families. They get into drug abuse. And often there are mental health issues."

Academics, medical and mental health services have been beefed up. The school day, previously just a few hours, was lengthened to match that of other schools and now lasts from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nursing coverage has been extended, and youth have access to a psychiatrist, psychologist, licensed clinical social worker and therapist.

Community groups are giving young people in detention a chance to express themselves in new ways, through art, yoga and writing workshops. Students are working with artist Eva Enriquez to create a mural featuring a Hawaiian goddess and an iwa, or great frigate bird, known for guiding those who have strayed or who are lost.

That project is funded with a grant from the James and Abigail Campbell Family Foundation.

"It’s amazing what happens in this little room," Enriquez said, pointing to a lehua blossom painted by a young man who declined to draw his own hand for a class assignment because it was covered with scars. "He said what he liked about this class is that ‘art gives me freedom.’"

As the population at the temporary Detention Facility has fallen, commitments to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility (known as "Koo­lau") have also trended downward, but it is still overcrowded.

The number of youth admitted to HYCF fell to 130 in 2011 from 193 in 2009, then ticked up slightly to 135 last year, according to David Hipp, executive director of the state Office of Youth Services.

"Koolau is a 56-bed facility," Hipp said. "I currently have 86 kids committed to my care and custody. Some are out on parole and could be brought back any time. In-house today we have 69. We double people up."

He said he is working closely with Family Court to try to find alternatives for some of the youth sentenced to Koo­lau, as was done for the kids detained while awaiting trial. While some violent offenders must be locked up for public safety, others could be handled in the community, he said.

The United States has by far the highest juvenile incarceration rates among the developed nations, according to the 2011 report, "No Place for Kids," by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The next closest country was South Africa, with one-third of the current U.S. rate. In Japan, incarceration of minors is virtually nonexistent, the report said.

"All the studies show that incarceration really doesn’t work well for juveniles," Hipp said. "Even at the front end it doesn’t work, which is why the courts have been able to reduce the number in detention without a subsequent increase in juvenile crime."