The Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS) in Hawaii is kept in custody by the Department of the Attorney General. It is the role of the Juvenile Justice Information System to collect and manipulate the data collected on juvenile cases. The Juvenile Justice Information system is governed by the Juvenile Justice Information Committee.
Minors who have been described as citizens under the age of 18 can also be involved in law breaking activities. When a member of this lot runs afoul of the law, they are recorded in the Criminal Justice System. In the system they are termed as juvenile delinquents. According to Chesney-Lind & Shelden (2013), young females also have vulnerability to criminal activities. In their study, they point out that most of the young females are influenced into crime. Young females have suffered a lot in sexual crimes. In fact, the girls delinquency increas
...ed for a period of time-in between 2004 to 2008, a fact that rose questions and influence the study by Chesney-Lind & Shelden (2013). The study aimed at establishing the reasons behind the increasing delinquency of the girls but did not leave aside that of boys. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has also supported researches on understanding girls’ delinquency, particularly through its Girls Study Group, an OJJDP research project to investigate the roots of and solutions to girls’ delinquency. These studies have proven that despite the fact that there different delinquency factors affecting both girls and boys which include family dynamics, neibhourhoods environment, school involvement and availability of community based initiatives, other factors directly increase a girl’s risk of delinquency. These risk factors include early onset of puberty,
sexual abuse or maltreatment, and depression and anxiety (Pasko, 2006).
Wardle, L. D. (2007) associates the problem of juvenile delinquency to family breakups and divorce. Children who are left without breadwinners at a tender age may be forced to engage in dubious activities for their daily bread and this way the wrath of the law finds them.
Hawaii has been able to develop method to reduce the girls’ delinquency. Researchers have devised several protective factors to prevent youngsters from becoming juvenile offenders. These protective factors include the involvement of a caring adult, school connectedness, school success, and religiosity. OJJDP is also committed to disseminating its research findings to promote better understanding of the factors related to girls’ delinquency and inform effective strategies to reduce it, while improving outcomes for girls in the four counties of Hawaii.
In the fight against juvenile delinquency, according to Gao, G., Perrone, P., Institute for Economics & Peace, & United States of America. (2007), in a report of the Hawaii juvenile criminal justice, it was reported that a group was developed was in its play to increasing the outcomes for youths, families as well as communities. Even against the backdrop of reduced admissions to the state secure facility, stagnant budgets and high recidivism rates prompted stakeholders to begin a discussion about whether Hawaii could improve case outcomes for youth, protect public safety, and provide the best return on taxpayer investments in the juvenile justice system.
The leaders of the state of Hawaii who championed the formation of the Hawaii Juvenile Justice Working Group charge the group with responsibility to develop ways in which the public safety returns would be increased form the Hawaii juvenile
corrections spending which would also include policy recommendations to:
- Reduce recidivism and crime by improving case outcomes in the juvenile justice system;
- Leverage and reallocate resources across the juvenile justice system to maximize the effectiveness of Hawaii’s correctional dollars and placement options; and,
- Ensure Hawaii’s policies and practices are grounded in data and evidence.
These were ways aimed at reducing the juvenile delinquency among the young boys and girls of Hawaii.
Greenwald, R. (2014) presents a study that examines the relationship between childwood trauma and Juvenile delinquency. In this report, Trauma has been suggested to be the major contributor to the cause of juvenile delinquency. Greenwald points out that among other factors affecting juvenile delinquency, biological and psychological reactions of the body is part. Greenwald argues that adolescence as a stage in the development of human being has got a role to play in the youth’s delinquency. Adolescents are described as aggressive. Once they are exposed to traumatic happenings, their aggressive behavior may be triggered further and this may lead to their involvement in criminal activities. Hawaii studies points out that sexual attraction to same sex among the young may be one consequence of traumatic exposure. The group of those suffering the problem of same sex attraction has been branded “sexual minority”. They have always been targets in the Juvenile Justice system. For this reason they have also been led to more severe criminal actions such as committing suicide among others. This clearly indicates why sexually related offences have been so much featuring in the Hawaii Juvenile Justice Information records.
Ineffective counseling for the juvenile offenders and those who are vulnerable has been another point of concern in
the State of Hawaii (Fedders, 2010). The government of Hawaii has provided for an Office of the Youth Service (OYS) which was established in the legislature in the year 1989. OYS is set to coordinate and provide services as well as development of programs that are aimed at preventing and reducing delinquency among the youth. The OYS also strives to provide a clear sense of responsibility and accountably for all youth services in Hawaii. Although a core responsibility of the OYS is to manage and operate the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF), the agency places great emphasis on providing and supporting “front end” prevention, diversion, and intervention services. One of the most important roles played by the OYS is the In-Community Service that entails direct dealing with the juveniles and acts as an intervention to the problem of delinquency. In-community services range from Positive Youth Development to Day Treatment Center services and they provide appropriate intervention and supportive services to youth who are experiencing behavioral, emotional, substance abuse, or adjustment problems while in the community. Youth who benefit from these services are those who may be at-risk for incarceration or further involvement in the juvenile justice system, or who are in transition from incarceration at the HYCF to the community.
These services include assessment/diagnosis, individual, group and family counseling, cognitive restructuring, anger management skill development, social skill building, self-concept development, Family strengthening activities are also provided as part of an overall effort to successfully maintain the youth in their families. Counseling is very crucial. As Fedders (2010) presents, inefficient counseling has been a major reason for the increasing levels of delinquency among the Hawaii children. It
plays upto 33 percent.
Other services that are provided under the OYS include:
- Positive Youth Development – Services and activities are provided to create opportunities for youth to develop competencies that foster resiliency and enable them to achieve a successful transition to young adulthood Dickerson et al, 2012). Such services for at-risk youth and their families contribute to the increase of protective factors that strengthen functioning levels and the decrease of risk factors to deter the onset of non-constructive delinquent and dangerous behaviors of youth. Specific services include: sports/health/fitness, academic tutoring, career/vocational, teen pregnancy prevention, and, drug/violence prevention. Failure to engage in such service will let the young boys and girls chance to engage in wrong doing.
- Truancy Prevention and In-School Suspension – Services aim to enhance school engagement and performance to ensure educational success for at-risk youth and their families by providing activities that promote attendance, attachment, and achievement to ensure educational success. Services are provided that are responsive to needs and desires of the community within a defined region/community and connect them to appropriate resources, services, and activities, justice system or non justice, both public and private.
- Outreach and Advocacy – Early intervention case advocacy services for youth who have come or risk coming into contact with the law to minimize penetration into the juvenile justice system, including those who are at risk for engaging in unhealthy, risky behaviors such as street youth, unsheltered (homeless) youth, out-of-school youth, youth in foster care and group homes, pregnant and parenting teens, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) youth, and youth who may be over-represented within the juvenile justice system as identified in the Disproportionate Minority Contact Report.Â
Services include outreach to identify and engage with youth/family to develop trusting relationships; intake and assessment; creation of youth/family driven service plan; support in accessing services and navigating the systems of care; circle of support approach (involving significant persons in the youth/family’s domain) to strengthen support system; attendant care services to receive youth who have been arrested/detained; and follow-up to assure services are fully secured.
Puzzanchera, C. (2009) has given the following data representations for juvenile delinquency Hawaii that shows the statistical trend in delinquency for the young in Hawaii.
Source: http://ag.hawaii.gov/cpja/files/2013/01/Data-Book-1999-20081.pdf
MacDonald & Chesney-Lind (2001) adds that although male juvenile offenders are arrested and confined in the juvenile jails, female offenders are victimized in the conviction process more. Hawken, A., & Kleiman, M. (2009) however argue that not that female offenders are victimized but the court feels that females should be handled
with tenderness and that any strict concern towards them is felt bias.
References
- Buckner, J. C., & Chesney-Lind, M. (1983). Dramatic Cures for Juvenile Crime An Evaluation of a Prisoner-Run Delinquency Prevention Program. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 10(2), 227-247.
- Chesney-Lind, M., & Shelden, R. G. (2013). Girls, delinquency, and juvenile justice. John Wiley & Sons.
- Dickerson, James G., Crystal Collins-Camargo, and Ramie Martin-Galijatovic. "How Collaborative the Collaboration? Assessing Interagency Collaboration within a Juvenile Court Diversion Program." Juvenile & Family Court Journal 63, no. 3 (June 2012): 21-35.
- Fedders, B. (2010). Losing Hold of the Guiding Hand: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in Juvenile Delinquency Representation. Lewis & Clark Law Review, 14, 771
- Gao, G., Perrone, P., Institute for Economics & Peace, & United States of America. (2007).
- Crime in Hawaii 2005: A Review of Uniform Crime Reports.
- Greenwald, R. (2014). Trauma and juvenile delinquency: Theory, research, and interventions. Routledge.
- Hawken, A., & Kleiman, M. (2009). Managing Drug Involved Probationers with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii’s HOPE: Executive Summary. Washington, DC: National Criminal Justice Reference Services.
- MacDonald, J. M., & Chesney-Lind, M. (2001). Gender bias and juvenile justice revisited: A multiyear analysis. Crime & Delinquency, 47(2), 173-195.
- Mayeda, D. T., Chesney-Lind, M., & Koo, J. (2001). Talking Story with Hawaii's Youth Confronting Violent and Sexualized Perceptions of Ethnicity and Gender. Youth & Society, 33(1), 99-128.
- Pasko, L. (2006). The female juvenile offender in Hawaii: Understanding gender differences in arrests, adjudications, and social characteristics of juvenile offenders. Research and Statistics Branch, Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division, Department of the Attorney General.
- Petrosino, A., Turpin?Petrosino, C., Hollis?Peel, M. E., & Lavenberg, J. G. (2013). 'Scared Straight'and other juvenile
awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency. The Cochrane Library.
