Students exposed to prison life through OCCC program

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

Bobby Torres and Wayne Kaohi grew up together on the rough streets of Kalihi in the early 1960s. Both got involved with gangs and drugs, but while they were courting trouble they were also sowing the seeds for an idea that would be used decades later to help other troubled Hawai'i teens.

O'ahu Community Correctional Center inmate Kapo Leslie talks to teens in Student Future Awareness, a program at OCCC that encourages at-risk students to stay out of trouble. Behind him is Al Bright, adult correctional officer. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"If it wasn't for my uncle intervening, I don't know where I would be today," said the 54-year-old Torres, who was persuaded to join the Army and served in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Kaohi chose another path and ended up in prison.

In the 1980s, the two friends were reunited at the O'ahu Community Correctional Center, Torres as a corrections officer and Kaohi as an inmate, then serving time on a drug conviction.

It was there that Student Future Awareness, a program at OCCC that encourages at-risk students to stay out of trouble, was born.

"Wayne felt it was a shame that those coming into prison were getting younger and younger," Torres said. "So that's how we teamed up on the program," founded in 1996.

Both were familiar with "Scared Straight," an intimidating, in-your-face program popularized on the Mainland in the 1970s that targeted juveniles on the road to trouble. But Torres and Kaohi felt the "yelling and screaming obscenities" approach was ineffective and in fact led some kids to mimic the same aggressive behavior in the outside world.

"Just by bringing them here, we hope they learn," Torres said.

But if intimidation is absent from the Hawai'i program, urgency is not. Inmates between ages 17 and 24 still make up a significant portion of the state prison population: 13 percent, or about 700 out of 5,500 prisoners. Nearly 13,000 Hawai'i children between ages 5 and 19 were arrested in 2000 for delinquent behavior, and a 1999 survey showed that 45 percent of high school students said they had consumed alcohol or smoked marijuana in the past month.

OCCC corrections officer Al Bright said roughly one-third of those between ages 18 and 24 who enter the Hawai'i prison system do so because of drug use or drug-related crimes.

"The number of inmates in all age groups is rising, but the younger portion of our prison population is alarming from our perspective," said state public safety director Ted Sakai. "We are worried about future generations ... and we feel prevention is the key."

Enter Student Future Awareness, the only authorized student program of its kind in Hawai'i's prison system.

"Teens don't like listening to authority figures, such as cops and corrections officers, but they will listen to inmates," Torres said.

Some of the teens from Mililani High School began the tour with arms crossed or hands in pockets in defiance or boredom. By the end, they took a different attitude, particularly after seeing the maximum-security holding cells and suicide watch ward and listening to prisoners such as William Gomes.

Gomes, 47, and serving time for drug possession, told the students how he "had it all" at one point. He was an all-star high school soccer player with a scholarship to Gonzaga University before he began using alcohol and drugs, he said.

Now he is dying from hepatitis C and cirrhosis from sharing needles with other intravenous drug users.

"I could go at anytime and I got no one visiting me," Gomes said. "You think you lonely now, take your loneliest day in your life and times it by a thousand. That's how it feels in here. Your friends don't come to see you. You're lucky if your parents come visit you. After landing in here, my mom said she needed to cut me out of her life because I was a cancer to her."

Gomes said he second-guesses himself every day.

"How many times I sat in my cell when that door slammed shut," he said, "and asked: 'What if I made that decision instead of this one?' "

"Roberta," a 14-year-old who is part of a Mililani High Teen CARE program dealing with substance abuse and teen pregnancy, said what she saw at OCCC was "scary."

But that was good, she said, because she needs all the motivation she can get to stay off drugs and alcohol: She said she has been clean for 35 days.

"After seeing what they go through, I definitely don't want to come back," she said, shaking her head.

Reaching students

OCCC inmate Mabel Maria shares first-hand experiences with Student Future Awareness participants. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Some of you already aren't listening," said Bright, adding only half-jokingly, "we hope you do listen during the rest of your stay here, because we don't want to see you again. If we have to, we might not be as accommodating."

Student Future Awareness has reached thousands of students, said Bright, who helps coordinate the prison tours. This school year alone, the program has provided tours to 26 school groups and teen organizations, reaching about 400 students.

"We've been getting a lot of requests through word of mouth," Bright said. "We've had to turn down a couple groups because of lack of time to accommodate them."

One thing that hasn't changed from Scared Straight programs is lessons on the brutality of prison life. Students are shown photos of inmates with graphic cuts, stab wounds and bruises received during prison fights.

And they get to see contraband confiscated from prisoners: huge knives and machetes created in prison metal shop; socks filled with D-size batteries to be used as a weapon; and homemade guns carved out of wood, with nails and rubber bands used for the weapon's firing pin.

"We got the best mechanics, electricians, landscapers here," Torres told the students. "They just made a wrong choice somewhere in their lives."

But it's the words of the inmates that grab the students' attention.

Mabel Maria, a mother and former police officer serving time for money laundering, said prison life takes away some of the most important things cherished by teens: freedom and privacy.

"The most degrading, dehumanizing part is when you're standing there naked ... during a strip search," Maria said. "If you shame, you better get used to it quick, because no one is going to feel sorry for you."

Alfred Liulama, finishing up a 10-year sentence for drug possession and kidnapping, stood authoritatively before the students, his muscular body filling out his prison fatigues.

Liulama talked about how the worst part of prison was when he realized how much it hurt his mother.

"If you don't care about yourselves and want to drink and get high, think at least about the shame you bring to your family," he said, his voice cracking. "My mom was crying during her whole visit here. It just killed her to see me in here. I'm trying to keep up this tough image, but I wanted to cry like a baby."

"Marisa," a 16-year-old who took the OCCC tour, said what had the most impact on her was seeing inmates as human beings and not just another number.

"They're just like anybody else. They have family," she said. "And we or anybody else can make the same mistakes, too."

Torres would be happy that she got that message. He plans to keep the Student Future Awareness going as long as it is doing some good.

As for Kaohi, he is now in an Oklahoma correctional facility because of Hawai'i's crowded prison. Torres said Kaohi is taking social work courses so he can work with at-risk students once he gets out in four years.

"Some of the inmates who transferred up there told him our program is still going, so he's proud of making something positive from his mistakes," Torres said of Kaohi. "I hope he becomes a counselor. I don't think anyone could be more qualified to help keep these kids straight, since he's been there, done that."

Reach Scott Ishikawa at sishikawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.

Correction: Wayne Kaohi, who is serving a sentence for burglary in a Mainland prison, has never been convicted of murder and has no connection with organized crime. A previous version of this story was erroneous.