{"id":8236,"date":"2022-06-23T10:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T20:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/?p=8236"},"modified":"2022-06-27T10:42:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T20:42:55","slug":"the-hawaii-youth-correctional-facility-has-no-girls-can-it-do-the-same-for-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/the-hawaii-youth-correctional-facility-has-no-girls-can-it-do-the-same-for-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility Has No Girls. Can It Do The Same For Boys?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Original story published on Honolulu Civil Beat on June 23, 2022 by Megan Tagami,\u00a0click here to read<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

For the first time in its history, the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility holds no incarcerated girls. Some believe that the same fate for boys may not be far behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The departure of all girls from the facility<\/a> in May follows decades of reform efforts from state departments and community organizations aiming to divert youth from Hawaii\u2019s juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meda Chesney-Lind, professor emerita of women\u2019s studies at the University of Hawaii, said experts have grappled with the challenge of reducing the population of the correctional facility since the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Youth work on a farm at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, which serves as an alternative to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility and is located on the facility\u2019s grounds.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Those efforts were accelerated after a 2004 Department of Justice investigation<\/a> revealed abuses at the facility, including the sexual assault of girls and inadequate medical care for incarcerated youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, state leaders focused on developing reforms to reduce Hawaii\u2019s reliance on the juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some efforts have focused specifically on reducing the facility\u2019s female population, others have provided community-based alternatives and robust support systems that have helped boys as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proof of success lies in the numbers: while HYCF had 200 boys 50 years ago, the number has now fallen to 16. The number of girls has hovered around three to four a day over the past two years, also marking a drop from the 25 female incarcerees HYCF held 10 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women tweeted Thursday that HYCF\u2019s female population had finally hit zero. However, girls may still enter HYCF in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement drew praise from Democratic Rep.\u00a0Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who retweeted the commission\u2019s announcement with the comment \u201cWow. Another world is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/AOC\/status\/1537784971737321473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1537784971737321473%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.civilbeat.org%2F2022%2F06%2Fthe-hawaii-youth-correctional-facility-has-no-girls-can-it-do-the-same-for-boys%2F\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The correctional center also has reduced its footprint. Mark Patterson is the administrator of HYCF and the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, a farming program for vulnerable youth located on HYCF\u2019s property. He said he managed three correctional cottages with up to 100 beds eight years ago. Today, there is only one cottage with 30 beds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha Torney, the former executive director of the Office of Youth Services who helped resolve the justice department\u2019s litigation against the state, said she credits the Judiciary\u2019s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative with reducing the number of young people incarcerated at HYCF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative offers community-based substitutes to detention and incarceration across the country. The initiative has collected data on the conditions of incarceration facilities, promoted home confinement alternatives and implemented reforms expediting the processing of juvenile cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you turn off that faucet and you start diverting kids away from detention, fewer and fewer are going to be committed to the youth facility,\u201d Torney said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, community organizations have sought to identify at-risk youth and divert them from the juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of those alternatives are provided by Hale Kipa<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that focuses on addressing the underlying issues of trauma and abuse that often lead youth to commit crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Kalihi Juvenile Assessment Center tries to keep individuals out of family court and the juvenile justice system by providing youth with civil citations and services to improve family relationships, remain in school and navigate their teenage years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hale Kipa also operates the Hale Lanipolua Assessment Center, which allows both girls and boys who were victims of sex trafficking to receive emergency housing and trauma-informed support instead of becoming incarcerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hale
The inside of the Hale Lanipolua Assessment Center, which is run by Hale Kipa and serves as an alternative to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of our programs are for both boys and girls, because we believe strongly that catching anyone earlier in there will prevent more penetration into the juvenile justice system,\u201d Hale Kipa\u2019s deputy CEO Jaque Kelley-Uyeoka said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile in 2014, Hawaii\u2019s Legislature passed a law increasing investments in youth mental health and substance abuse programs with the goal of cutting HYCF\u2019s population by 60% by 2019. In the same year, the Legislature decriminalized prostitution for minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the reforms targeted both boys and girls, Torney said. However, specific changes including the decision to decriminalize prostitution, targeted unique problems faced by girls in the juvenile justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, the Hawaii State Judiciary created the Girls Court to teach probation officers how to work with and understand girls\u2019 needs since workers\u2019 caseloads overwhelmingly consisted of boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you turn off that faucet and you start diverting kids away from detention, fewer and fewer are going to be committed to the youth facility.\u201d <\/strong>\u2014 Martha Torney<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, judges received training in order to understand the underlying trauma driving girls\u2019 decisions to run away from home. As a result, judges began to work with girls to help them receive counseling and other services in lieu of placement at HYCF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender-specific approaches to diverting youth from HYCF also reflect differences in the reasons for incarceration for boys and girls across the state. While girls are more likely to commit status offenses, such as violating the state\u2019s 10 p.m. curfew<\/a> or failing to attend school, boys tend to be more involved in criminal activities such as robbery, sexual assault or murder, Torney said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For these reasons, Torney added, it may be more difficult for HYCF\u2019s male population to drop to zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have boys who engage in very serious behaviors, and so we may never get it to zero,\u201d Torney said. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Patterson remains hopeful about the potential for continued progress in the state. He believes it is possible to reduce the overall population in HYCF, especially because many of the youth who are convicted of serious felonies are tried and held in the adult criminal system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chesney-Lind also sees the milestone of having no girls as a positive sign for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always argued that female incarceration is really just a roadmap for how we get fewer and fewer kids into those kinds of settings,\u201d Chesney-Lind said. \u201cBecause you don\u2019t want to have your kids growing up in a prison.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OYAH Kawailoa campus partners, Hawai\u02bbi Youth Correctional Facility and Hale Kipa share more on how community efforts led toward lower numbers of girls incarcerated in Hawai\u02bbi. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":7129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,20,122,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kupa-aina","category-news","category-partners","category-programs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8237,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8236\/revisions\/8237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}