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For six weeks at a time, the Kupa Aina farm opens its 5-acre property in Kailua to teens who have recently been arrested for the first time. Working with farm staff, the teens spend their Saturdays learning how to plant and harvest crops like kalo and bananas.   

The Hookanaka program provides youth a chance to connect with trusted adults and reflect on how their decisions affect their communities and families, said Shawn Malia Kanaiaupuni, president and CEO of the nonprofit , which runs Kupa Aina farm. At the end of the program, participants meet with judges, probation officers and family members to discuss their growth and plans to stay out of the juvenile justice system. 

“All youth deserve a fighting chance to find their promise and potential, and some youth have a steeper climb than others,” Kanaiaupuni said. “It’s up to us as community members and support systems, whether it’s state agencies or schools, to be able to wrap around them more effectively.”

The farm is only a minute’s walk from the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, which serves girls and boys ages 13 to 19. The site holds 25 teens right now, but Kanaiaupuni is optimistic that the number can drop to zero by the end of the decade.  

Partners in Development’s goal of ending youth incarceration in Hawaii is supported by a $20 million grant from the that began in 2022 and will run until 2030. Partners in Development administers the grants, Kanaiaupuni said, but multiple community organizations partnering with the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center are eligible to receive the funds to support their work serving disadvantaged or incarcerated youth.  

Kawailoa Center spans 500 acres and operates under the supervision of the Office of Youth Services. The site encompasses the state’s correctional facility, a public school for at-risk students and nonprofits targeting issues such as youth homelessness and workforce development for teens. 

Meda Chesney-Lind, professor emerita of women’s studies at the University of Hawaii Manoa, said Hawaii has emerged as a national leader in reducing youth incarceration in recent years. Native Hawaiian youth and adults have historically been overrepresented in detention centers and jails, she said, and state leaders are now recognizing that teens need mental health services and mentorship instead of imprisonment.

“It was just over-punishment,” Chesney-Lind said about Hawaii’s past approach to youth incarceration. 

A Plan For Spending

At its height around 2010, the youth correctional facility served nearly 200 boys and girls, said administrator Mark Patterson. Teens were penalized for nonviolent crimes like running away or skipping school for extended periods of time, and entered the correctional facility instead of being placed on probation, Patterson added. 

Now, the facility typically serves 20 youth ages 13 to 19. The facility made history in 2022 when it had no girls for the first time, although the female population has since risen to five. 

Under the Kellogg Foundation grant, Partners in Development hopes to develop and expand the programs that have helped to reduce youth incarceration over the past decade. The organization plans to spend roughly $2.5 million every year until 2030. 

Notably, Kanaiaupuni said, the grant has established the Hookanaka farm program for first-time offenders that began earlier this year. Partners in Development is also using the funds to hire cultural liaisons who coordinate projects and learning activities for youth at Kawailoa. 

Since January, Isaiah Burch has served as the cultural liaison for the Residential Youth Services and Empowerment program, which is part of the Kawailoa Center and provides temporary shelter to youth ages 14 to 24. Burch works with RYSE residents five times a week, introducing them to Native Hawaiian culture and values as they visit local fishponds and pull weeds in the loi fields. 

Through these outings, Burch said, he’s hoping to introduce youth to future mentors and potential job opportunities that can support them past their time at RYSE.

“We’re going to go all around Oahu trying to find the right place and person for these folks,” Burch said. 

Executive director Carla Houser said RYSE plays a key role in preventing incarceration by getting homeless youth off the streets and into a safe place where they can focus on their futures. Other programs at the Kawailoa Center share similar goals of providing formerly incarcerated or at-risk youth with job training, education, counseling and more.

With the help of the Kellogg Foundation, Houser said, she’s hopeful Hawaii can become a model for other states and countries for ending youth incarceration. Already, she added, the work at Kawailoa has caught the attention of advocacy groups in New Zealand and Japan.

“It’s transformative,” Houser said. “It’s making significant change that’s going to last generations.” 

More Investments Needed

Moving forward, Patterson said he’d like to see more initiatives offering mental health support to young people. Teens who are in the child welfare system may lack the resources and family support they need to address conditions like depression or schizophrenia as they also work through past traumas, Patterson added. 

The vast majority — 90% — of Hawaii teens in the youth correctional facility are there because of mental health issues, Patterson said. Some judges don’t know what to do with young people experiencing mental health crises, he added, so they send teens to Kawailoa.  

“They represent programs that the community does not have, so they’re with me,” Patterson said. 

In addition to outside support from the Kellogg Foundation and other organizations, state lawmakers also need to invest in young people, said Melissa Pavlicek, a volunteer legislative advocate at . 

This year, $900,000 for youth mental health programs that will be coordinated under the Department of Health. Supporters said the funding could connect youth with therapy, grief counseling, substance abuse services and more. 

Chesney-Lind said it could be a costly and challenging endeavor for the state to end youth incarceration completely. Boys tend to commit more serious crimes than girls, she added, and Hawaii may always need a place to house a small number of serious offenders who pose a threat to public safety. 

But, Houser said, more people are starting to understand that jail cells and punishment aren’t the solution for children. With sustained support from donors and state leaders, she believes Hawaii can end youth incarceration by the end of the decade.

“We’ve figured out how to transform this,” Houser said. 

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the , and .