ISLAND VOICES
For lack of funding, a tragedy

Sid Rosen is CEO of Adult Friends for Youth.

When political decisions are made, they are frequently the worst of choices, the most costly and end up having nothing to do with solving the problem. In fact, they may actually contribute to it.

My thoughts take me back to 1994. A soldier, Billy Sturm, was viciously beaten by four youths at a convenience store on the North Shore. Billy's injuries resulted in a lengthy hospital stay and a medical discharge from the Army.

Two of the youths were adjudicated as juveniles, but the older two were tried for attempted murder as adults. This was a cold, brutal attack, and yet, when the jurors handed down their guilty verdicts, several wept.

It was apparent to many of them that Billy Sturm was not the only victim in the courtroom. The jury performed its difficult duty, condemning two boys to prison for as many years as they had lived.

Could the beating have been avoided? Maybe so. A year before the attack, one of Billy's attackers approached an Adult Friends for Youth staff member and asked for help for himself and his friends. Very reluctantly, AFY had to reject his request. The agency had just suffered a state budget cut of more than $114,000, which resulted in the loss of a skilled professional gang worker. This group could have been helped for only $15,000.

Instead, the state will, eventually, end up spending hundreds of thousands to incarcerate two of the youths in adult prison and two in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility.

Prison is just too simple a solution. Law enforcement and prosecutors scream for it, because as a solution it is something the politicians and most people know. Unfortunately, by the time action finally takes place, there are few alternatives.

Drug users, criminals and others engaged in destructive behaviors are human beings. Many are low-income minorities who have experienced historic poverty, are poorly educated, perceive themselves as second-class citizens, have few if any positive role models, and see themselves as lost causes with very little hope.

After 67 years, I still don't understand why the words of love, peace, nurturing, caring and charity that so easily fall from our lips on the Sabbath are reduced the rest of the week to hate, lust, avarice and ven-geance.