Juvenile Justice
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1997-08-17
Guests: Meda Chesney-Lind (Professor of Women's Studies, University of Hawaii; principal investigator, Hawaii Youth Gang Project); Michael Town (Senior Judge, Family Court); Iwalani White (First Deputy Prosecutor, City and County of Honolulu)
Duration: 1:01:02

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: Welcome to the Price of Paradise show. We are broadcasting live Sunday mornings on KHPR and KKUA, then rebroadcast Sunday evenings, beginning at 8 o'clock on KIFO. Everyone who works to bring this program to you is a volunteer who believes in the importance of lively informed public dialogue. I'm going to begin this morning's show with an apology to my guests. We have a very important topic that we're going to be focusing on this morning and I have what is truly the A-team to be talking about this topic. If you haven't yet looked at this morning's newspaper, you may not realize that there's a tremendous amount of coverage. Included in that coverage are two very long responses to our broken trust article.
[00:01:26] Randall Roth: My co-authors and I haven't read or hadn't read until this morning when we opened our newspapers either of these letters, and we're hoping that all of you will read them very, very closely. It'll take a lot of time, but the issue is of critical importance, and so we we ask you to take that time. We're going to be meeting either later today or sometime tomorrow to prepare our response, and again, since these letters are directed to the five of us, we do want to confer and and respond to them. More than anything, in doing so, our goal will be to stay focused on the key issue, which is to determine what's in the best interests of the princess's intended beneficiaries.
[00:02:20] Randall Roth: We had set aside our show next week for either the justices or the trustees to come in to present their perspectives; both have declined our offer, so we're going to do something on the Bishop Estate. I'm not sure what we're going to do, but whatever it is, we're going to be sure that we stay focused on what's really important. The sensitivities of the trustees, justices, and authors must not be allowed to drive this conversation. Again, the overriding consideration must be what's in the best interests of the beneficiaries. Well, with that, we get to this morning's topic, which is Juvenile Justice in Hawaii. With me in the studio, I have Judge Michael Town. He's the senior judge of the Family Court, has an undergraduate degree from Stanford, law degree from Hastings, and an advanced law degree from Yale.
[00:03:12] Randall Roth: He's been a judge here in Hawaii since 1979, and for many years has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Hawaii School of Law. We also have Eva-Lani White, who is the first Deputy Prosecuting Attorney here in the City and County of Honolulu. She's a former Family Court judge, and while she was in the Family Court, she was the lead judge of the Juvenile Division. With us by phone is Mita Chesney-Lind. She's at the University of Hawaii; she's a professor in the Women's Study program and the principal investigator on the Hawaii Youth Gang Project. Mita, Eva-Lani, and Michael, good morning.
[00:03:49] Meda Chesney-Lind: Good morning.
[00:03:50] Iwalani White: Good morning.
[00:03:51] Randall Roth: I think we'll start with with you, Mike, and and our listeners, at least our regular listeners know that that this is not a sign of disrespect that I don't say Judge Town. We just made a decision a long time ago that on this show everyone's on a first-name basis. Mike, what do we really need to think about when we talk about juvenile justice in Hawaii? What does it kind of boil down to?
[00:04:14] Michael Town: Well Randy, I think what most people are interested in is why do we have a specialized court for kids? Why not a little adult court with the typical criminal sanctions? And the reason we have a specialized court for kids is that kids are not little adults. And I think we need to think about that a little bit. Kids don't have the experience or the judgment of adults and they they should be held accountable but in a different way. And ever since 1965, when the Gault decision came down from the Supreme Court, it's very clear this is a court as well as a very important kind of a social clinic for kids and the kids get every right that adults have other than that of jury trial.
[00:04:52] Randall Roth: Now, where do we draw the line? When you say the the Family Court is a is a special court for kids, at what age does somebody no longer qualify for this specialized court?
[00:05:03] Michael Town: Well at 18 by law and now at 14 in special situations when they're charged with serious felonies, on a case-by-case basis, the court can wave or send them to adult court. That doesn't happen a lot.
[00:05:17] Randall Roth: So for example, if you're the sitting judge and there's a a 15-year-old kid who's done something that's particularly violent and there's a background of of this sort of behavior and the prosecuting attorney says, Judge, we think that this ought to be done in in an adult court as opposed to this specialized court just for youth, you as judge would have to make that call.
[00:05:37] Michael Town: Yes, this year the legislature lowered the age from 16 to 14. We do have done that regularly at ages 16 and 17. We haven't yet had a 14 or 15 year old waiver.
[00:05:48] Randall Roth: Oh so it's not unusual for a 16 or 17-year-old to be and I know you're using the term waived and I guess that means sent to the the regular adult court.
[00:05:55] Michael Town: Yeah waive waive Family Court jurisdiction and send them to adult court.
[00:06:00] Randall Roth: Okay. I'll come back to you in just a moment, but Eva-Lani White, you used to be with the robe behind the bench and now you're on the other side of this as a prosecuting attorney. As you listen to Mike and based upon your experience, what do you think we ought to be focusing on on today? What what's at the core of this important topic juvenile justice?
[00:06:19] Iwalani White: Okay, um, I think the word is complexity. The the the whole causes of juvenile crime is very complex. So you have to approach it at that point. It's not just locking them up, it's not just treatment, it's not just programs, it's a combination of everything including active community involvement. Um, because the community needs to become involved in in um members in these young in these youth because if not, these are our replacements. When we go, these people are supposed to replace us so we have a duty and responsibility to make sure that they are healthy, that they are educated and that they have gotten the appropriate kind of values that that we see is important in our community.
[00:07:04] Randall Roth: Now Eva-Lani, you're you're with the the prosecuting attorney's office now, and and I have the impression just from reading newspapers, listening to the radio and watching TV news, that the public is more or less calling for more of a crackdown. They want the prosecutor and the police and the judges to to really be harder, to be tougher on everyone, especially kids. In other words, I think the public feels that there are some and in the term that sometimes is used is predators. There are these these young people out there that are just doing terribly violent things. Um, do I have that right in terms of of the atmosphere and if so, how does that impact on you?
[00:07:44] Iwalani White: I think that people don't feel safe and so that's why they're yelling for tougher tougher laws and being getting tougher on these kids, when really what the underlying message is, I don't feel safe in my home, I don't feel safe in my car, I don't feel safe in the streets. And as a prosecutor, we have a duty to ensure the public safety. So, but in order to assure safety, it's not if we're looking at the juvenile offenders that they have no confidence in the system to protect them. And part of the reason why they don't have that confidence is because they don't know what's going on at the court. Since I was on the other side, as it were, sitting as a judge, um, I have a lot of confidence in the ability of our courts to protect us, but because it was confidential and the doors were closed, nobody knows.
[00:08:29] Iwalani White: So what people do is they see an outcome and they guess as to the process that led them to that outcome. But when we went to the legislature and we asked to open up the doors, now people can come in in certain kind of cases and sit and watch our system at work. Once that has occurred, then I think public confidence in the juvenile justice system will rise and people will see that the court can can take care of business.
[00:08:55] Randall Roth: So a little bit ago when Mike was describing what our our process is in Hawaii, the Family Court has this specialized court if you will for for juvenile offenders and sometimes they're waved out of this juvenile court, but one of the aspects of this something that's unique about juvenile trials, I hear you saying is that there's been this confidentiality. Nobody knows exactly what has happened and why it's happened and that's changed.
[00:09:23] Iwalani White: Yes, well well it will be changing because we just passed the um the governor just signed it into law.
[00:09:27] Randall Roth: I see and so as that changes and so the public sees what's being done by the prosecuting attorney, by defense counsel, by the judge, you're confident that people are going to understand that it's more complicated than to simply get tougher on these kids.
[00:10:04] Iwalani White: Exactly, yes, exactly, that's exactly how I feel.
[00:10:04] Michael Town: My Town. Yeah I was going to say kids are the public sometimes think kids might be like a car you take to the mechanic and you get it fixed. Uh, it's a process, as Eva-Lani says, we need the help of the community, the parents, the probation officers and everyone and to try to reach that child. So it's not it's not a simple uh one stop shop easy deal.
[00:10:24] Randall Roth: Okay, and I should add that that's none of my guests in the studio that's crowing in the background. I assume that's a pet of yours.
[00:10:32] Meda Chesney-Lind: This is not our pet but we live in the country and you're hearing a little bit of Ka ava.
[00:10:37] Randall Roth: Okay, well Mita, you've heard uh Mike just real briefly summarize some thoughts on juvenile justice in Hawaii and Eva-Lani White, and I know you know the two of them very, very well. Uh, what's your reaction to either what you've been listening to or what do you think we should be focusing on that's maybe a little bit different than what you've been hearing?
[00:10:56] Meda Chesney-Lind: Well, I think the major point to make and it's actually been echoed by both of the comments you've already heard is that if there's not that much wrong with juvenile justice, we don't need to rush out and fix it. And I think the public perception as Eva-Lani mentioned is that that youth crime is out of control, that kids are violent juvenile predators and we certainly hear that rhetoric nationally and to some degree locally. So one of my jobs has been and one of the jobs of I think Criminology has been to sort of bring some facts into this discussion and what we are seeing um as we look more closely at arrest trends both in, you know, nationally and locally is that actually juvenile crime is not raging out of control.
[00:11:35] Meda Chesney-Lind: But what has changed over the last decade is media coverage of youth crime. And we tracked it um doing some content analysis of our local newspapers and discovered that in the last decade in particular um we saw thousands of percent increases in the number of stories on juvenile crimes and youth gangs. Um, at a time when juvenile arrests in our state were more or less stable and actually the last couple of years they've declined. So what I've sort of said briefly and somewhat uh whimsically is that what we have is a media crime wave, not a youth crime wave.
[00:12:21] Randall Roth: Mm hmm. So when Eva-Lani says, people aren't going to be as as threatened, they're not going to worry as much about their personal safety once um this confidentiality uh aspect of juvenile courts is is lifted where people better understand just what's going on. You're saying if if the media would not highlight uh things the way they have been, that people also would feel safer?
[00:12:54] Meda Chesney-Lind: Well, I think it's just a matter of getting the coverage back under control. Um, as the cold war has sort of dissipated, it seems as though we're constructing our own kids as the new enemy and um, we we do need to ask and certainly some of us have been meeting with the press to talk about a more balanced and responsible approach to to youth crime. So that the public, you know, Eva-Lani put her finger right on something very important. People read these stories and they imagine, you know, that this is going to happen to them. So people begin to get very fearful. And you you know, you need to have a balanced reporting of all of the social problems, not not a sort of media hype because that's what sells papers.
[00:13:42] Randall Roth: Okay. Um media or Mita, I know that you and I have chatted briefly in the past about some some federal legislation and and I don't know whether it's actually been enacted or or if it's in the process. Could you could you summarize what that's all about?
[00:14:07] Meda Chesney-Lind: Well, that's what I think has most of us um alarmed and it's these are initiatives that are occurring at the um federal level. We have two bills moving through the house and actually, um both of them have passed the house and one bill moving through the Senate. And this, without getting too technical, what's happening is that every four years or so there's a reauthorization of what's called the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. And this year um, or actually it was last year, it should have been reauthorized, there there have been a whole raft of new initiatives proposed and all of them represent a major course change in juvenile justice. And the most worrisome elements for me have to do with um, well the the waiver issue is one, Mike mentioned our own waiver law which went through in some of the federal initiatives, that would be lowered, could be lowered even to 13.
[00:15:05] Randall Roth: And again waiver means not holding the trial in the family court instead treating them like an adult.
[00:15:10] Meda Chesney-Lind: Right, um, there are other initiatives that look at things like building new facilities, that look at graduated sanctions for kids, that look at putting status offenders back into detention facilities for periods of time and before you know that that's a whole another issue we should probably address at some point. But essentially, what's going on nationally is that we if you look at the titles of these acts, there's the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act, the Juvenile Crime Control Act, the Juvenile Crime Control and Delinquency Prevention Act. That's the most mellow of the three initiatives. They're punitive, um I would characterize them as mean-spirited and to some degree uncoupled from the facts, initiatives passing through a, you know, a congress that is making a name for itself as getting tough on crime.
[00:16:36] Meda Chesney-Lind: So we're all in Hawaii going to have to deal with the consequences of these federal initiatives.
[00:16:41] Randall Roth: I I am looking at your article in this morning's advertiser, and um, uh if listeners haven't seen on page B6, the the back page of the Focus section, we have articles by our our three guests, and Mita's ends with this sentence. Uh, the smart money is on prevention and early intervention, not prison cells. And Eva-Lani White, I know from your piece I I get the same sort of impression that we really do need to focus more on prevention. But I'm sitting here remembering a show we did a few months ago where the cost of constructing the last youth facility was something like a half million dollars per youth just to build, and we've got a financial crisis and I'm wondering, how do we do this?
[00:17:46] Randall Roth: How do we how do we handle this stuff better unless the money is there and and I know you're not responsible for coming up for with the money, but what are your thoughts on on this side of the issue?
[00:17:59] Iwalani White: Ooh, that's a hard that's a hard question. Feel free to jump in anybody. I it's it's but it's money well spent. It's money that is necessary. It's like if you have a brain tumor, you don't treat it with an aspirin. You know, [unintelligible — audio glitch] need to go for the big treatment. But like I said, it it in the beginning, it's must be complex, must be must be um, [unintelligible — audio glitch] varied. There are there are some kids that we don't really have an interest in rehabilitating. All we want to do is get them off the street because they're dangerous, but they're few of those. There are a large amount of kids that can benefit from some sort of drug treatment or whatever, but we need to keep them in one place while we're doing it.
[00:18:41] Randall Roth: And and away from the hardened adult criminals.
[00:18:45] Iwalani White: Um, yeah.
[00:18:46] Randall Roth: I mean is that a a major theory of of keeping the youth together?
[00:18:50] Iwalani White: Yes, yes, and also our um, I think that there's a people think either or either treatment or incarceration. Sometimes you need them both, because a lot of our children are not just, I mean they just don't steal cars. Okay, they have drug they have drug problems, but they also run away from home, their parents have no control over them, they don't go to school. So we need to maintain some keep them in one place so that we can adequately treat them, give them an education, and then they will be safe in our community.
[00:19:22] Michael Town: Yeah, I think that is what Mita says, we need to get smarter not tougher and Eva-Lani as well. The big puka, the big gap in the system is are the intermediate care facilities.
[00:19:31] Randall Roth: And and tell me what describe one of those to me.
[00:19:33] Michael Town: Normally, a child comes in, we may want to divert the child out or put the child on probation in the home, keep the child in the home, mainstream with the parents in the community. Short of of uh of lockup, sometimes the child can be removed from the home and put at the Bobby Benson center, Habilita, one of these other centers, and we don't have enough of those kinds of centers that are that are community-based and driven where then the parents are are no longer there, there's somebody else 24 hours a day working with that child to understand that child.
[00:20:02] Randall Roth: And and I guess what I'm hearing from from all of you is that there there's some treatment in addition to to just having them there where uh they're not doing damage to to other people, to the community, uh they can get some sort of treatment.
[00:20:14] Michael Town: Yeah, what we're trying to do is is work on life skills. This child, we hope when the child's 18 will vote, work, uh be a contributing member of society, be self-sufficient adult. And we really are not in the home so we don't know and yet when they're in this facility, we do know. There's 24 hour a day right ups and we're going to get to understand that child.
[00:20:32] Randall Roth: Okay. In case you tuned in late, you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth, the topic this morning is juvenile justice in Hawaii. With me in the studio is Judge Michael Town and first Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Eva-Lani White. With us by phone is University of Hawaii professor Mita Chesney-Lind. She's the principal investigator on the Hawaii Youth Gang Project. If you'd like to ask a question or make a comment, give us a call at 955. 8821. If you're on a neighbor Island, it's 1-800-955-8821. Uh let's go to, well, Ivalani, you had a comment to make and then we're going to start going through the calls.
[00:19:12] Iwalani White: Even though we do have some treatment facilities available, we don't have enough of them. And and more, most importantly, none of them are secure. These these kids can walk out of this residential treatment facility in a blink. So, we have a need um for some secure facilities for the drug addicted teens, especially, especially as I put out my article, for the drug addicted uh pregnant teens because I think we have an interest in our future, that those children be healthy and well born. What we and also what we do not have is any secure mental health facilities for our our seriously or dangerously mentally ill. So, I think that with confidentiality kind of being, you know, lifted a little bit, people coming in and seeing this, they are not only going to see how the court works, but also notice and see and expose the lack of services and treatment available to the court.
[00:20:05] Randall Roth: Yeah, I I guess the the less we know about this, the the more our fears get out of out of control. Well, let's go to some callers. First, Leonard from Kaneohe. Good morning, Leonard.
[00:20:15] Leonard: Good morning. Uh Randy, I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts. Uh it seems to me that the current approaches to correction merely reinforce the failed system that we have of overcrowded facilities, no money to build new facilities, no proper attention to the facilities we have as far as staffing and making sure that people aren't abused and that sort of thing. They teach more and better ways to commit crimes. At the same time, we have this trend in society that if a parent corrects a child with corporal punishment, then the parent gets prosecuted. Why don't we use caning? Why are we such hypocrites to maintain that a few days of physical pain, which seems to deter crime where it's used, is worse than months and years of degradation in prisons and jails?
[00:21:04] Randall Roth: Leonard, I think you've got more points to make, but hold on a second. And let me ask my guests if any of them have thoughts to share on alternatives. You know, alternative ways of of uh meeting out punishment. I know Ivalani, you mentioned something about boot camps in in your article. Um any thoughts on on Leonard's first comment?
[00:21:22] Iwalani White: Um well, I I definitely think that our current facility that we have is is um is just totally inadequate, especially in view of no intermediate in community programs. If we don't have those in intermediate community programs, we got to put some bunk beds in at our at HYCF.
[00:21:40] Randall Roth: But you don't feel a a need to have more alternatives so far as the ways of quote punishing an offender is concerned.
[00:21:48] Iwalani White: Well, the sentence or the disposition for the juvenile has to be more than just punishment, or you have accomplished absolutely nothing. Uh for the for the vast majority of the juvenile offenders coming through the system, punishment is a part, but it's not the part of of the sentence. You have to at least that he must be better at the end of his of of this sentence than he was when he first came in.
[00:22:10] Mike Town: Yeah, what most people would consider punishment we call accountability. A child, for instance, commits a burglary, that child may serve some time in locked up just as payback if it's a repeat offense. That child may have to pay back the family for what's been taken. That child may have to apologize, either by if the family wants that, that child may have to do community service. That's a consequence. Uh I call it punishment, I would call it accountability, or a logical court imposed consequence.
[00:22:38] Randall Roth: And in trying to tailor it to the situation.
[00:22:40] Mike Town: Should be fashioned to that child along with services.
[00:22:43] Iwalani White: Randy, can I just step in there, because I think to build on what Mike has said, there's a trend nationally, and I know Mike's a part of this, uh to look at restorative justice and to bring the community back into the criminal justice system to give it as Ivalani said, some confidence in the criminal justice system um to try and get accountability, which would involve um sometimes restitution, um a conversation between the victim and the person who victimized them so that there's a a kind of a healing that can occur. And I think within our local community, we can we can get a lot closer to that than maybe some mainland communities. But the trend nationally, um this juvenile justice aberration aside, has been to try and create um a way for the community to see the criminal justice system at work and for victims and offenders to heal um some of the injury that occurs when somebody is victimized.
[00:23:37] Iwalani White: So I think those initiatives are very important and and constructive. With reference to the issue that Leonard raised about the overcrowding at the facility, that's a tremendous concern that all of us have. Um I'm going to say something that maybe will put some awkwardness into the conversation, but some of the problem has to do with short-term commitments, particularly from neighbor Island um communities, and these are um more punishment-oriented sanctions that that are being instituted. And I think inappropriately, often because there are no facilities on those um islands for the kids. So that's one reason for the overcrowding anyway.
[00:24:16] Randall Roth: Mita, I don't I don't understand um you know your last comment. Could could you elaborate a little bit on that?
[00:24:23] Iwalani White: The issue of short-term commitments? Yes. This is where a judge basically says a and Mike and Ivalani can probably correct me on this, but a judge basically says, a kid is going to go to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility for a short period of time, a three months or one months type deal. This is not a regular commitment. It's a just a sort of a maybe shock incarceration kind of idea. But the uh these incarcerations bump up the census at the facility rather dramatically. And what we need to look for are other ways to respond to those kids' problems, maybe on their their home Island.
[00:24:59] Randall Roth: I see. So, it's a both because that better serves the kid and because it better serves the community, given the fact that our prisons are overcrowded.
[00:25:05] Iwalani White: We we don't have the money to um you know incarceration is a very expensive choice and the community really needs to allocate that to its most serious offenders. And in the study that we just did at the um Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, we looked at the offenses of the kids coming particularly from the neighbor islands, and they're relatively minor offenders compared to our Oahu kids.
[00:25:29] Randall Roth: Okay. Leonard, you you've generated uh quite a discussion there. I know you've heard some agreement and some disagreement with your points. Uh why don't we let those um stand, you know, as as said, and move on. Give us one more point that you're going to make and then I've got some other callers I need to get to.
[00:25:44] Leonard: Thank you, Randy. I just appreciate the discussion that that generated and I just feel that uh on the surface, it appears as though we've lost our collective minds on how to raise children. We don't have a clue anymore of how to do it. And when when they when they do get over the edge, and we we actually are to the point now we have a law that says we can put 14 and 15 and 16-year-olds in our hideous adult prison system. Uh I think we have completely gone bankrupt of alternatives and we definitely need alternatives to the justice system we have now for juveniles and for adults. And just look at the at the Honolulu Star Bulletin, Robert Reese's article this week on the treatment of those prisoners, uh and and what happened to people who tried to reform it.
[00:26:26] Leonard: The state is in the dark ages. We're in we're in we're in the dark ages here in our prisons.
[00:26:30] Randall Roth: Leonard, I really Well, I really appreciate your call and and you've made some some important points. Mike Town, do you have a quick reaction to that?
[00:26:37] Mike Town: Yes, we the court waves uh around 10, no more than 10 to 20 juveniles a year, comparable communities like Cincinnati of our size waive 100 to 150 kids a year. So we're at the very low end of waiver, and it's because the prosecutor is very selective about who they ask, and even who they ask the court to waive, we waive about 50%, Randy.
[00:26:57] Randall Roth: You know, listening to Leonard say we've just kind of lost it so far as raising our kids are concerned, I know being a parent, a responsible parent is is the hardest and and most humbling job that I've ever had. And uh folks, if you haven't seen uh Mike Town's '10 Ways to Keep Your Child Out of Court' on page B3 of this morning's advertiser, uh, you know, they're simple points, but as a parent who's wrestled with some of these things, it's really helpful to see them stated so clearly and and persuasively, um, in the paper this morning. Let's uh move on to Steve from Honolulu. Good morning, Steve.
[00:27:30] Steve: Good morning. Fascinating program. I think there's some factors unique in the Hawaii mix with regard to youth crime, and because of our small size, might help us get a handle on things. Um professionally, most of my life has been uh in dealing with the Vietnamese community. And I know that members of the Vietnamese community are appalled by what is the current wave of youth crime, and and what they see as a problems with the folks in their own community, young people. I also know that they see this as largely a breakdown of traditional structure. And I'm wondering whether we don't face a unique problem here. Um Anglo-Saxon law, the kind of law that we have to deal with in our courts, and the kind of things that are passed by a Congress which is largely of that kind of uh mindset, treats all of every individual as an individual under the law.
[00:28:23] Steve: We we treat people atomistically, but I think the cultural factors that are behind a lot of what we now see expressed as youth crime, represent what are really breakdowns in community controls, family controls and things that would normally prevent crime in in the cultures that these people come from. But we don't do anything about it.
[00:28:37] Randall Roth: Steve, you've made a uh a fascinating and provocative point and I want to see if any of my guests would like to comment on it. Um in the studio, Ivalani, any thoughts, if not, we'll we'll ask Mita.
[00:28:54] Iwalani White: Let's let's Mita go first.
[00:28:55] Randall Roth: Okay, Mita.
[00:28:57] Iwalani White: Okay. Well, with reference to the issue of uh family, um one of the things that came out we interviewed kids that were members of gangs about why they joined gangs.
[00:30:37] Steve: folks in their own community, young people.
[00:30:39] Iwalani White: This is Brady home, you know, baking apple pie um kind of family image doesn't exist in the lives of the kids who who find their way into gangs. Um often, you know, as Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, if you go to look for the family, there's no there there. Um so it's it's correct to say that these are community problems. These are kids whose families are dysfunctional at best and we have to devise other structures, other ways of responding to the problems that those kids have or they'll, you know, craft their own solution which will be the gang um to to meet their needs. Their need to feel belonging, love, acceptance, you know, all the things kids need.
[00:31:17] Iwalani White: So he's absolutely right that that there are some cultural issues in play here. The the stress of immigration is also one that you see in terms of the attractiveness of gang membership. So obviously the the confidence that the public has in the criminal justice system has to be improved. We need to get the word out. You know, people keep saying the youth crime is raging out of control, and we keep trying to say, look, studies actually show that in the last um and this is again nationally and locally that that crime is actually under control. Um in our own state, the last two years we've seen rather steep declines in the number of kids arrested. So we are doing a pretty good job in the uh juvenile and criminal justice system, but I think the public perception is that we aren't.
[00:32:00] Iwalani White: And so this radio program and efforts like it I think are are initiatives to try and sort of educate the public about what the problems are, what the response is, you know, and where are the pukas and we've identified those.
[00:32:13] Randall Roth: Okay, Mike Town, I think you had a comment about uh Steve's comment.
[00:32:16] Mike Town: Yeah, the the uh I think it's not a real rigid legal system that we're in, Anglo-Saxon or otherwise. It's very uh it's a reasonably informal system. At family court the judge does wear a robe. We want to hear everything that anybody has to say. The parents, the aunts, the uncles, the grandparents are there. Uh I do agree though that the competition uh is the street. And if the the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club of Honolulu PAL League, uh what is their competition? They don't really compete among each other, it's the street is the competition. And it's hard for me to believe the street could have that strong of a draw, and yet it does. Whatever the street is.
[00:32:51] Randall Roth: So people who who worry about this breakdown, maybe one of the things they could do is is help somehow the Boys and Girls Club or PAL or or one of these organizations.
[00:33:01] Mike Town: Be a be a coach uh through their churches, do a uh youth outreach group, something along that line, because the competition is the street. And I think parents need to also know where their childs are at every moment of uh where they should be at least and double check. That's their job.
[00:33:15] Randall Roth: And and for those of you who who look to walking the walk rather than talking the talk, let me tell you, Mike Town has been the most active person I know in these sorts of things um during the 15 years I've lived in Hawaii. Steve, we started this fascinating conversation with you. I'm going to let you have the last word and then we're going to move on.
[00:33:30] Steve: Oh, very quickly. I think what I think there's a the basic misunderstanding has to do with horizontal versus vertical. In American society, youth very much look to their peers. American teenagers in the the big bane of American culture look a lot to the opinion of their friends. And indeed, one of the things that really horrifies people in traditional communities is the fact that that kids' friends seem to have more power over their actions than their elders. And so it is this transfer from what is basically horizontal in a traditional community, the opinion of your aunt, your uncle, your father, your mother is more important than the opinion of your friends, to this uh uh larger American kind of culture where the opinion of your friends and the public is more important than the opinion of your family.
[00:34:10] Steve: And I think we have to do something to get back into that groove.
[00:34:13] Randall Roth: Okay. Steve, thank you very much. Really appreciate your call this morning. Let's go to uh uh Laurel or Laurel from Makiki. Good morning.
[00:34:20] Laurel: Good morning. How how do you pronounce your name? Morl. Laurel. Yes. I was uh calling about the the emphasis only on the the juvenile uh and and the crime they're committing. There's no emphasis on the irresponsible parenting that has been going on for years before that juvenile ended up out in the street where the rest of us finally noticed. Would you please put some emphasis on that? Laurel, how do How do we turn that around? How how do we change that? You you you mentioned many times that you've got both parents out of the home working. If they're both working, they're confiscating at least 25% of the income they're earning to put on this child that's having a problem and get that child away from that family that's causing the problem by not supporting them or taking proper care of them.
[00:35:02] Laurel: And that's emotional, mental support, not just they they put some food in the refrigerator and tell the kid go make your own breakfast or whatever.
[00:35:09] Randall Roth: Laurel, good point. Thank you for calling this morning.
[00:35:13] John: Good morning, John. Good morning, sir. A couple of points. One, spare the rod and watch crime grow. That philosophy of sparing the rod, I think is a key element of this complete problem. Secondly, parents are always permitting their children to take power away from them. You just watch people, their child is the only thing in the world, God, is how they're treated, which is a corruption in the whole attitude. Uh thirdly, you know, if you will look at, for example, on the welfare rules, they all claim they don't know who the fathers of the children are. Put them under the lie detector test and hit them for fraud. There's too many people going around saying, 'We don't know who's reigning as a pregnant.'
[00:35:55] John: You know, this is a big game out there. So we have to clamp down on the parents, and I have them get a license to be parents. And that means you got to go to schooling to be a parents.
[00:36:04] Randall Roth: I hope I would be grandfathered in and not have to be tested, John. I sometimes wonder how I would do.
[00:36:11] John: I hear your kids are good kids. Well, we so far, so good, John.
[00:36:14] Randall Roth: John, I really appreciate your call. Um we've got a bunch of people on the line. We've got to keep moving. And in fact, I should tell uh people who tuned in late that this is the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth. We're talking about juvenile justice in Hawaii.
[00:37:26] Mike Town: Yeah, I wanted to agree with John on on finding these uh getting these dads uh adjudicated. Over 5400 kids a year are born in Hawaii out of wedlock, and uh only about 1700 to 2000 are actually on a yearly basis are the dads identified and made legal. And I think it's very important to find these dads, not only uh help help support the child financially, but uh encourage these dads to direct their children, and they'll do it. They'll do it.
[00:38:00] Meda Chesney-Lind: The hour was um, epidemic of teen pregnancy. We have, in our state, one of the highest, well actually, the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, uh, in one of the small communities on the Big Island that I just visited. We really need as a state to take that whole situation seriously, and one of the things the public often doesn't know is that when we talk about teen mothers, we're often talking about adult male fathers. And, um, often the ages are in variants. In fact, the younger the mother, often the older the age of the father. So, there's some real virtue in making men culpable, adult men often, culpable for victimizing very young girls in in some of our more economically marginalized communities.
[00:38:46] Speaker: Okay, that was Mita Chesney-Lind. Let's go to caller Arthur from Kailua. Good morning, Arthur.
[00:38:51] Arthur: Oh, good morning. Um, I didn't hear that last comment at all. I can't hear anything. Oh, can you hear me?
[00:38:58] Speaker: Uh, we can hear you fine, Arthur. Why don't you go ahead and make your comment or ask your question.
[00:39:02] Arthur: Um, I was wondering if I'm correct, I have some friends that work at HYCF.
[00:39:08] Speaker: And and that's the that's the youth youth correctional facility.
[00:39:12] Arthur: Correctional facility, okay. It's $14 million for 30 beds. Is that correct?
[00:39:17] Speaker: Uh, that's real close.
[00:39:19] Arthur: Why was that so expensive? And why did they only make 30 beds?
[00:39:25] Meda Chesney-Lind: Can I respond to that? I don't know why I don't know why it's so expensive. This is even one for the light for the prosecutor's office. Um, but I do know that several years ago, they went before the legislature and they convinced them that 30 beds would be more than sufficient because given the demographics and all that kind of neat social worker stuff. You have Mita, um using your stats, and that's all they would need. However, it was on the basis that there would be all these in-community secure treatment facilities. So what happened was, we got only half. We only got the 30-bed facility. We didn't get those in-community treatment programs. If we had all of that stuff in place, I don't think that we would be in the in the in the, um, crisis that we find ourselves now.
[00:40:09] Arthur: Well I heard it was it was inadequate from day one.
[00:40:12] Speaker: Hang on, hang on just a second, Arthur. I'm going to come back to you. Listeners, I told you I had the A-Team here. Uh, Mita, I think, uh, you were referenced in Eva Laney's comment. I want to give you an opportunity to respond to that and then I want to give, uh, Mike Town an opportunity to say something then we'll go back to Arthur.
[00:40:27] Meda Chesney-Lind: Um, I had a hard time hearing hearing his question, but I gather that part of what he's asking about is the cost of a facility and why it's so high.
[00:40:35] Speaker: Well, and and did you hear Eva Laney's, oh, yeah, yeah, I could hear her fine.
[00:40:39] Meda Chesney-Lind: Um, I think one of the things people don't understand is that anytime you talk about a a prison-like facility, the the costs are invariably high, and whether it's going to be 200,000 or 400,000 a secure bed, it's still going to be an extraordinary amount of money. My students have the same reaction. It's like, why is it so much? It's all they need is a bed, but you have to talk about that you you imprison people constitutionally. That means you give them health care, you give them food, everything that they need has to be within those four walls. You have three shifts that have to guard them. So this is not an inexpensive undertaking.
[00:41:12] Speaker: Well, except that the number that that Arthur gave us was just the cost of constructing the facility. It it wasn't the cost of of maintaining it.
[00:41:19] Meda Chesney-Lind: Right, well, it's still it's very very pricey. I mean, if you talk about health care, for example, you're talking about health care on the grounds often, you're talking about a school on the grounds, um, all of those, you know, you have to build that into your facility if you have any kind of vocational training, it's in it's between those four walls, so it's not a cheap thing to do, and you're and you're also building something that people don't want to be in, you know, so it's not like a church or a school where people sort of want to be there, it's a, it's a prison, so.
[00:41:47] Speaker: Well, but are you in in disagreement with Eva Laney? I think Eva Laney is saying, we need more facilities like that and I'm not sure whether you're in disagreement or agree.
[00:41:54] Meda Chesney-Lind: No, I wouldn't agree that we need more HYCFs. I think we the the she's correct, at least my recollection is, that we said we needed more staff secure, we needed more, um, in-community facilities and all of those were removed from the budget. I mean, that's what happened. So we really did get half a loaf and what that does, and what it has done is created a tremendous pressure on the population at HYCF because after you exhaust a few, and it's a very few little stations, they're um, on that railroad train, the last station is always HYCF, and so we need more stops.
[00:42:28] Speaker: So the the two of you are really in much more in agreement than disagreement on this issue.
[00:42:33] Meda Chesney-Lind: I think so. Scary, isn't it?
[00:42:36] Speaker: I like these people. Um, Mike can you comment on that?
[00:42:40] Mike: Yeah, I I think that it's a continuum rather than a railroad, and and, um, I agree that there there aren't enough treatment facilities before a kid is locked up, and we need to get very smart, very early, including with status offenders. A status offender, Mita referenced earlier, is someone who is a runaway, is a truant, is acting out in a non-criminal way, but by virtue of being a child, uh, can suffer some uh, some consequence or should suffer some consequences.
[00:43:06] Speaker: Arthur, you started what, at least to me, was a fascinating conversation, uh, why don't you finish up, uh, with your remarks.
[00:43:13] Arthur: Um, hello?
[00:43:14] Speaker: Yes, Arthur, can you hear me?
[00:43:15] Arthur: Yeah, um, I one more call one more question is like, what percentage of the halfway houses are located in the Kailua, Manoa-Wili environment.
[00:43:23] Eva Laney: We don't we don't have any. 0%. There are no halfway houses.
[00:43:27] Arthur: Yes, there are. I know for a fact. They're not called halfway houses.
[00:43:31] Eva Laney: Well, I'm not sure what the correct term is, but I I know for a fact that there is a high percentage of those houses in the Windward side and why are they not spread out all on the island.
[00:43:41] Speaker: Is is your point, Arthur, that that there's some unfairness here in terms of where they're being located?
[00:43:45] Arthur: The community is scared.
[00:43:47] Speaker: Okay. Because because the facilities in your opinion are are there. And I say in your opinion because Eva Laney [unintelligible — audio glitch] um is saying something different, but you feel that unfairly too many facilities been put in your neighborhood, and it's made your you you feel it. No, I'm not saying I'm not saying Nimbie, now not in my backyard, but I'm just wondering, yeah, why why is there so many in in one area? Okay. Eva Laney, why? I'm going to hang by. No, no, don't hang up, Arthur. Arthur, come back, Arthur. Are you there, Arthur?
[00:44:17] Eva Laney: Okay. Um, yeah, as far as [unintelligible — audio glitch] how how I use the term halfway house, it's quite different probably from other people's perception. Halfway house implies some sort of supervision. What they have, these are group homes that they have out there, they kind of dump they they put these people there with no supervision, no monitoring of their progress. Um, so it's in my mind there are no halfway houses in the state of Hawaii.
[00:44:40] Speaker: It might have the name, but that's not the reality.
[00:44:43] Eva Laney: Right, exactly. Now, I also have been informed that there are um uh, statistically or whatever, Windward has more than its fair share of these things, and I also informed that [unintelligible — audio glitch] Windward side do have their concerns, so, um, I've heard these things, too.
[00:45:00] Speaker: So, Leonard is making what you would consider some real good points. Arthur yes. I'm sorry. Arthur, that's right. Okay, let's go to Sean in Waikiki. Good morning, Sean.
[00:45:08] Sean: Uh, good morning, all. Thanks, thank you for having me on on your show. Um, one thing I'm really frustrated with, especially the HYCF, uh, their mission statement, I believe, if, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, calls to take timely risks for the education of their wards. If that's the case, I want to bring up a issue about Gabriel Kealoha. Um, he's the uh, command main student who was convicted of uh, you know, pushing, uh, pushing the cop off the, off the the bridge or whatever.
[00:45:34] Speaker: I think just so listeners know, it was it was determined to be manslaughter, uh, and it involved the the traffic incident where the the officer who was not on duty, uh, ended up uh, going over the edge, um, and and again, he was uh, Gabriel Kealoha was found guilty in juvenile court of uh, manslaughter.
[00:45:54] Sean: Okay, thank uh, thank you very much. And but, you know, here's this kid who has no no criminal record whatsoever, you know, command main student, you know, straight A, he even had an award from from the police department for catching catching a burglar. Um, his his evaluator said he is not a threat to the community, yet his he's been denied his education. Now, you tell me, how's that helping our youth when you deny their education, deny them going to U of H or or deny them any kind of education? I mean what's up with that? Thank you very much. No, no, stay on the phone. Oh, sure. Thank you. Stay on the phone.
[00:46:27] Speaker: Mike, I don't think I in fact, I know you cannot talk about this, Mike Town, because you were the judge very much involved in this and I know judicial ethics simply prohibits you from from talking about it right now.
[00:46:38] Eva Laney: Eva Laney White, is there anything that you can say about this specific case? I guess just to kind of echo what I said earlier about how a sentence [unintelligible — audio glitch] a juvenile and a criminal matter or even for an adult in a criminal matter has to take into account not only the individual, but also the nature and circumstances surrounding the offense. So, um, a sentence given to a child is not just helping him. It's not just rehabilitation. It's got to be a a um, a blend of various things, one of which is punishment. The other one, the other part of it is some sort of rehabilitation. So, given the nature that a that a person is now dead, given the circumstances surrounding that offense, that court found that uh, incarceration was going to be the sentence, and the court made that decision.
[00:47:28] Eva Laney: And the court takes into consideration at time of sentencing, they get a full blown social study. They know all about this child. Well, I think Gabriel Kealoha's case brought up a very important thing about confidentiality, because people were not there during the trial, they did not hear all of all of that evidence. What they have is an outcome and what they also have is information given to the public by one side by the defense. The prosecution was not allowed because under at that time, confidentiality precluded the prosecution from saying anything at all about that case. So unless you were sitting right there in that courtroom and heard all of that evidence, only then can you then have an informed opinion as to whether or not the sentence was fair or not fair.
[00:48:13] Sean: The only thing that uh the public was misinformed out. The prosecution actually had their side of the case presented, presented through the media. Uh, the Kailua side had, you know, was given given very little little coverage. I don't know how this person can say that. I I mean I I just don't know. I mean it's beyond comprehension. But listen, I thank you all very very much for you know, for hearing me out. Sean, can can I just make one thing, um what right, what uh, you know, if this kid is supposed to be incarcerated, you know, what right did a drunken police officer have to take on this fine young boy? Just I, you know, I would like to know, I would like to know where's the justice in that? Where's the where's the justice in that? Thank you very much.
[00:48:49] Speaker: Thank you, Sean [unintelligible — audio glitch] Mike again, I know you're you're prohibited from talking about this. Um, I'm reminded of what you were saying earlier in the hour and that is if people can see a little bit more of what's going on in the family court, I suspect that that we won't be left with a lot of questions that currently people are asking.
[00:49:06] Meda Chesney-Lind: Can I, I I know that that's a a point that's emerging here but I'm going to you know, say that I have some concerns about the opening the doors of family court too broadly and and I'll say why, and that is that the court was founded in 1899 to be a court that had a great deal more flexibility and could work in the best interests of the child. And [unintelligible — audio glitch] appeal of openness, and those of you who know my husband know that, you know, we're not necessarily not big fans of openness but the downside of openness in this case is the stigma that might be involved. Um, the the idea was always to try and let kids make mistakes, to not have them stigmatized as offenders, and when you open up the doors, the first thing that happens is their pictures of kids' faces on cameras.
[00:49:54] Meda Chesney-Lind: And that's the worry, that's the that's the downside of opening up the process. I understand the appeal and in the KLO case, which is a very complicated one and I don't have any real information to add to that whole discussion, but the other side of it is that now, you know, that face is in the public's eye as a criminal and that was always something to be avoided.
[00:50:15] Speaker: Okay, Mita, thank you. Um, just because Mita mentioned her husband, I just that that's Ian Lind, who who was the head of Common Cause and and is just uh, as as most people know, an investigative reporter at at the Star Bulletin and and a passionate proponent of of openness. Certainly. I'll bet you have some real interesting conversations over breakfast. This one's been a tough one, and let me also say about the Kaloha case, good juvenile justice, good quality justice is never driven by egregious cases.
[00:50:50] Meda Chesney-Lind: But it's always the case and whether it's a Súa case or the case that's just been described. We really want to back the public up from those high profile situations to talk about the more garden variety kind of kid that that the court sees every day, and and to craft public policy around the needs of those kids.
[00:51:02] Speaker: Okay. Mike Town, yeah, thanks Mita for raising that. And the issue of confidentiality, uh, legislatures around the country in the last five years have re-examined and relaxed, uh, confidentiality.
[00:51:14] Mike: The data is that basically when the court's open no one comes. When they do come, it's to one of these high profile cases that ultimately, uh, often get talked about in the newspaper anyway.
[00:51:27] Speaker: But but we like knowing we could go, Mike. It could go and fresh fresh air helps, but uh, and also there's another question is whether shame and blame works. It certainly worked in many of us for kids. Okay. Well, we're running toward the end of the hour and I'm just going to take one more call. Mary from Makiki. Good morning.
[00:51:45] Mary: Good morning. Um, my the thing that came to mind when you were discussing the juveniles and the family situations, were that kids don't seem to have, I don't know if it's the fear or respect of their parents and adults that they did when I was growing up. I know my own kids weren't, who are now 24 and 27, and thank you God, have turned into great adults. But you know, if I would tell them that that something wasn't to be done or you know, you we don't do this, it didn't seem to have the impact on them that when my own mother told me that kind of thing. They um, you know, if my mother said, don't do that, or you can't have that or whatever, I believed it. They they don't seem to have that belief that if if I said, you can't do that. That that there was a um, oh yeah, who's going to stop me kind of attitude.
[00:52:39] Speaker: Mary, let me get a reaction to your comment uh first from Mita Chesney-Lind. Mita, any thoughts?
[00:52:45] Meda Chesney-Lind: I um, well I this is what I maybe want to hand off to to the professionals who deal more regularly. I I'll just say this, the the peer culture in kids' lives is very, very powerful and I think one of we've been flirting with that with Mike's comments about the call all the streets and one of the big challenges is to understand the power of that and to and to try and recognize that that's what we're up against and to you know, just understand that kids today are much more interested in what their friends say and think than what adults tend to say and think.
[00:53:18] Eva Laney: I think that um even when we were as old as we are, okay, even even we were 14 and 15 once, um our peers had had a lot of influence in our lives too. But I think, and this is just because I do have a social sociology background, um, I think that if you were when you were young, and you had a good strong foundation given to you by your parents, that that is going to be your grounding force. So you don't spin out of control when you do hit your adolescence. So your peers can lead you astray to a certain extent, but then there is also and I firmly believe that kids always have choices. Um, and the choice on whether to do good or evil, I think sometimes depends upon how strong that foundation and the closeness with your parents has been in the past. Um so it's got to be the building of that foundation. Now, as far as there is a difference in how parents have been allowed to abdicate their responsibility for their children.
[00:54:15] Eva Laney: They don't back the schools anymore like they used to. So now teachers have have lost some sort of authority in children's eyes. Even the police, when the kid is getting arrested, God forbid, if I was a kid and I got arrested, I would be more I'd rather have the police take me away than [unintelligible — audio glitch] mother would do to me. So the police had the backing of of the parents, but right now, everything is kind of in a state of flux. You sue the cops, right? You you you sue the schools when you don't get what you want, or what they print stuff [unintelligible — audio glitch] your scrapbook or whatever. Um, so there there is no really strong authoritative base that has traditionally been with people and per and and agencies and authority. That has kind of winnowed away. But if the parents have given somebody a really strong foundation, that's something the kids can always go back to when they are tempted to kind of go astray. What do you think, Mike?
[00:55:05] Mike: Well, I agree that we have to look at the kid's peers, and if the kid's peers are in a gang and have drugs and have guns, uh, that's a big problem. I like to look at the parent's peers. What are the parents doing? Do they providing something that the child is going to respect and is going to buy into. Uh hopefully the parents aren't involved in guns, gangs, and drugs, but we have to have adult centered households that, as one of the earlier speakers said, we can't do everything for our kids, and I agree. At some point, they need to know that while they're important, uh, the adults run the show and have to assert their authority, hopefully reasonable.
[00:55:38] Speaker: Mary, thank you for your call. We're down to just the last few minutes. In fact, each of our guests just has about a minute or so to, uh, emphasize what needs to be emphasized or add what needs to be added. Uh, Mita Chesney-Lind, go for it.
[00:55:52] Meda Chesney-Lind: Well, again, I think, you know, what what you've heard today is that it's a complex problem and, you know, there are never, it's you know, there's always one simple solution to a complex problem and it's always wrong. So, let's let's keep our our solutions complex and I think the juvenile justice system is that kind of response. It's nuanced, it's sophisticated, and it's flexible.
[00:56:13] Speaker: And the the headline on your article on page B6 of this morning's advertiser is first let's separate crime myths from facts, and you would say it's it's a myth that that crime is raging out of control, the fact is that coverage of crime is raging, well maybe not raging out of control, but it's it's exploded compared to a few years ago.
[00:56:33] Meda Chesney-Lind: Absolutely.
[00:56:34] Speaker: Okay. Okay. Um, Eva Laney White.
[00:56:39] Eva Laney: Okay, okay. Very briefly. Um, I think that needs, I want to echo what um, what Mita has said, but also that it may spin out of control unless we're going to get the prevention and the rehabilitation treatment centers that we really require. Judges at family court are asked to do brain surgery with a butter knife because they don't have the
[00:57:00] Speaker 1: services available to them in order to to take care of the complex problems presented to them by the juveniles and the families that appear before them. The second thing I wanted to say is that we do have to urge and encourage parents to take responsibility to control their kids to participate actively in a child's treatment rehabilitation make them pay for it. Everybody thinks it's free lunch nowadays. Um and that they they have to be physically responsible for their children also. they should be allowed they should be forced to pay for their child's attorney in court. They should be um if the child has to be placed in a foster home at $530 a month, they should have to pay for that too if they're unable to provide a safe home for the children to reside in.
[00:57:41] Speaker 1: And that's all I have.
[00:57:43] Speaker 2: I like an expert with passion. That's Eva Lani White, who's the first deputy prosecuting attorney here in Honolulu. Judge Mike Town.
[00:57:50] Judge Mike Town: Most kids in Hawaii do not come to court. Those that come, there is no backlog, they're dealt with in a timely fashion. We hope therapeutic, they're held accountable if they are if they have committed what they have are charged with and they cycle out of the system and go on and do well. So the system in my view is not broken. It's functioning, um periodically there are there are anecdotal examples of one where there's difficulties. We're very aware of that, and we're always trying to improve on that.
[00:58:17] Speaker 2: And a listener who wants to do something. A listener who's who's listened to this, thought about this, but now they want to do something. What's something constructive that that anyone could do to help in this area, Mike Town?
[00:58:29] Judge Mike Town: Prevention, I would think. Get get involved with something that they're passionate about that involves kids, their church, the boys and girls club, YMCA, a PAL league, something like that to keep kids out of the system and to give them something to do and and looking into these 10 ways of keeping your kid out of family court.
[00:58:46] Eva Lani White: The research suggests that if kids have one caring adult, it doesn't have to be a parent, that they can rely on through those difficult years, they're going to be doing a lot better. They'll come back 20, 30 years and say this this was the person who kept me out of trouble.
[00:59:00] Speaker 2: So it could be a neighbor that just makes a point of talking to that kid next door and asking him or her how the day went.
[00:59:08] Eva Lani White: Absolutely.
[00:59:09] Speaker 2: Okay. Well, that's Juvenile Justice in Hawaii with Judge Michael Town, deputy prosecuting attorney Eva Lani White and Professor Mita Chesney Lind. The producer of the Price of Paradise Radio Show is Suzy Roth, our director of operations whom we call our technical wizard is Jeff Ilarte. Jenny Tanji from the University of Hawaii has been the most faithful replacement imaginable. Suzy's been on the mainland and Jenny is here uh all the time when we need her helping out. Um if you haven't visited our internet site, go to www.popweb.org, some interesting things there. Including we'll be putting on either today or tomorrow uh the bishop estate um uh will and some interesting matters. You've been listening to Pop Radio. Aloha.