Youth corrections measures approved

Hawaii officials aim to reduce the juvenile population at Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility by more than half in the next five years and use savings from the reduction to steer troubled youth toward a crime-free life, according to Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office.

The effort is part of a bill Abercrombie signed into law Wednesday. Abercrombie also signed a law that bans sentencing children to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Hawaii.

"This is all part of an ongoing re-examination … of our criminal justice system," Abercrombie said before signing the bills.

Act 201 attempts to improve the juvenile system by reserving the 56 beds at HYCF for serious juvenile offenders and diverting less serious offenders to group homes or other private institutions.

That will reduce HYCF’s population by about 60 percent over the next five years and save the state about $11 million, according to the governor’s office. Last year the state spent $200,000 per bed at HYCF, the state’s only youth correctional facility.

Despite the six-figure cost, about 75 percent of youth released from the facility reoffend within three years, according to the bill.

"The focus of the bill is to really do all the work up front when the kid first starts getting in trouble, so you don’t have to use the back end," said David Hipp, executive director of the Office of Youth Services, which oversees the youth facility. "All the research shows that once you start locking a kid up, you get diminishing returns."

He said the state must wrap services around youths to keep them out of trouble, do the correct case management and follow up to keep youths from falling deeper into the system.

He said the act provides funding to purchase services for youths and makes best practices nationwide into state law.

Act 201 is the result of a bipartisan working group’s study to analyze the state’s juvenile justice system.

Before signing the second crime-related law, Abercrombie said the United States is the only country in the world that allows children to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He said it would be cynical to believe a child cannot be reformed and should be sentenced to die in prison.

He said the law, Act 202, brings Hawaii in line with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that found only a small portion of young people who engage in illegal behavior have deeply ingrained patterns of problem behavior. The Supreme Court also found that the characteristics of youth reduce the justification for the harshest sentences even when terrible crimes are committed.

Abercrombie said Act 202 ensures young people will be held accountable for crimes like murder, but also recognizes their capacity to grow, be rehabilitated and to "redirect one’s life."

Under the law, people under the age of 18 at the time of the offense who are convicted of first-degree murder or attempted murder will be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.