Posted on: Saturday, September 18, 2004

Youth inmate shift criticized

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

A nonprofit group that seeks to help incarcerated youths is objecting to the state's plan to temporarily transfer six girls from the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility to a facility in Utah.

The Hawai'i Juvenile Justice Project, made up of about 40 community organizations, yesterday said it understands the need to alleviate crowding and staffing problems at HYCF, but said that shouldn't be done at the expense of the children.

"It is appalling that the state is now planning to use the same methods employed for adult offenders on our children," Kat Brady, the project's legislative coordinator, said in a written statement. "Children need to be near their families, communities and other supportive people in their lives."

The Office of Youth Services, which oversees HYCF, announced this week that it will send six girl wards to Utah next week to allow the state to upgrade a building used to house wards and alleviate the crowding problem in the boys facility. Sharon Agnew, executive director of the Office of Youth Services, said the move is temporary and not meant to punish the girls or their families.

"This is, in our viewpoint, the most compassionate and thought-out plan we could possibly do to get the good results, not only for the girls, but to help us in addressing the crowding issue on the boys side as well," Agnew said. She said she believes this is the first time girls are being transferred, but said boy wards have been sent out of state by HYCF, as well as by state judges.

The Rev. Sam Cox, an official with the Interfaith Alliance of Hawai'i, said the transfer is a "terrible idea" because it will separate the troubled youth from their families and local support programs that reach out to them.

"It is critical for their rehabilitation that they receive the support from their families, although sometimes that is minimal," Cox said.

Agnew said the state has attempted to hold the female wards in other facilities, including on the Neighbor Islands, without much success. Many of the girls, she said, have run away from those facilities.

"We have to take into consideration the public's safety," she said. "If children are committing crimes and we send them back to the community where they've done thefts or crimes that they should have been committed to the facility for, then we're highly criticized for that as well."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i, which has been highly critical of the conditions at HYCF, also has objected to the plan.

Advertiser staff writer Mike Gordon contributed to this report. Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8025.