Housing a juvenile at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility costs the state $199,320 a year — more than four times as much as boarding and tuition at the elite Hawaii Preparatory Academy on the Big Island.
Juvenile incarceration declined 21 percent in Hawaii between 1997 and 2010, part of a national decrease in juvenile crime, but the state lacks sufficient alternatives to divert young offenders — particularly those with substance abuse problems — from costly detention.
A new juvenile justice project announced Wednesday by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, state Supreme Court
Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald and state House and Senate leaders will attempt to reduce juvenile crime and recidivism while also lowering costs. The project, a partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts, is an extension of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative launched two years ago to improve the criminal justice system.
A working group will analyze juvenile justice data over the next few months and make recommendations to the Abercrombie administration, the courts and the state Legislature.
“By no means is this a substitute for confinement if that’s warranted,” Abercrombie, a former probation officer, said at a news conference at the state Capitol. “What we’re trying to do here and what we will do here — and what the working group, I believe, will accomplish — is set some of the parameters and the boundaries and the context for the decisions that judges will be making.”
As many as 80 percent of the youth that cycle through the juvenile justice system have substance abuse problems, according to Family Court Judge R. Mark Browning. Yet Browning said there is only one residential treatment program for such juveniles, the Bobbie Benson Center in Kahuku.
“It’s tough when you don’t have the kinds of resources that you need to help these kids early on, to catch them early on when they first come into the system,” Browning said.
The state estimates that about 15 percent of the 135 juveniles committed to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in fiscal year 2012 were violent offenders. The rest detained at the 56-bed facility — considered by the state as a “last resort” — were nonviolent offenders and probation violators.
These juveniles, experts believe, could be candidates for expanded drug treatment or other community-based alternatives to incarceration.
“We know that our youth are better served by alternatives to secure confinement that are located in their community,” Recktenwald said. “We’ve got to create more alternatives for our youth and their families, particularly on the neighbor islands. At the same time, we must ensure public safety.
“We need to talk about how best to target beds in secure facilities to juvenile offenders who do pose a significant threat to public safety while providing a range of alternatives for nonviolent and low-risk offenders.”
As part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Abercrombie and the Legislature agreed on a new law in 2012 that sped up the risk assessment process so the courts can more quickly determine whether adult offenders should be released from custody while awaiting trial. The law also limited the length of incarceration for first-time parole violators.
A separate law allows probation for some second-time drug convictions and cut the length of probation for some second and third-degree felonies.
The changes are intended to free up space in the state’s overcrowded prisons and make it possible for Hawaii inmates housed on the mainland to return home.
Similar structural changes could improve the juvenile justice system.
Senate President Donna Mercado Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Moanalua-Halawa) said the high cost per bed at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility is unacceptable. She said that despite that spending, a majority of juvenile offenders return to the justice system.
“So we really need a system that will hold our juveniles accountable, that will protect our society and our community, but will control the costs,” she said.
Browning said the costs extend beyond dollars and cents.
“There’s the human cost of losing kids — the cost to that family,” he said. “Secondly, if the only thing that you have as an option is to place that kid in HYCF — basically incarcerate him until he is 18 or 19 years old — generally speaking they are going to come out worse off.”
