JDAI Site Updates

Hawaii Joins JDAI Ranks

Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald T.Y. Moon

Officially joining JDAI in April, Hawaii participated in the Casey Foundation’s "quick launch" process designed to speed the establishment of JDAI core strategies and offer direction and resources for new sites. It reduces on-site technical assistance and places a greater reliance on utilization of the JDAI Help Desk and targeted trainings on JDAI fundamentals, risk assessment instrument development, reduction of racial disparities and detention self-inspections.

The inaugural event opened with Hawaii’s first stakeholder meeting and the Casey Foundation's Bart Lubow, director of programs for high-risk youth, and Gail Mumford, senior associate for juvenile justice reform, welcoming the future reformers into the JDAI fold.

The Hawaii Office of Youth Services, the Juvenile Justice State Advisory Council, and the Hawaii Judiciary are partners in the JDAI planning collaborative. Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald T.Y. Moon talked about the importance of stakeholders in his plenary remarks.

"The key component to the success of JDAI in any site is the extent to which stakeholders work together, collaboratively, to develop new values and visions, build critical alliances and re-engineer complicated public bureaucracies. In this room, we have representatives from the judiciary -- judges, probation workers, social workers, and detention workers. We also have representatives from the prosecutors, public defenders, law enforcement, the ACLU, community organizations, victims’ rights groups, unions, and educators. All islands are represented," he said, "Hawaii should exceed expectations."

Moon also described the many challenges facing Hawaii’s policymakers and practitioners, "The work of JDAI is about changing the systems that result in over-inclusion of our native Hawaiian youth and other over-represented minority youth. It is about doing a better job at not only choosing who we detain, but how we detain them. And, to make sure that we don’t detain kids who shouldn’t be detained in the first place. It is about recognizing that, if we are to succeed, we have to do it together."




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