REPORT TITLE:
Youth Gangs, Rehabilitation


DESCRIPTION:
Appropriates $1,000,000 to be expended by DHS to implement a
rehabilitation program for members of gangs based on the
Redirectional Method.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                             
THE SENATE                              S.B. NO.           843
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 1999                                     
STATE OF HAWAII                                                 
                                                             
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                   A  BILL  FOR  AN  ACT

MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR THE REHABILITATION OF MEMBERS OF
   YOUTH GANGS.



BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

 1      SECTION 1.  The legislature finds that over ninety youth
 
 2 gangs have been identified by name and place on Oahu.  Most of
 
 3 the members of these gangs are low-income minority males from age
 
 4 eleven and up.  These gang members do not believe they have a
 
 5 place in the American social, economic, and educational
 
 6 mainstream, and, therefore, feel alienated from it.  The Honolulu
 
 7 Police Department estimates that 1,500 youth are involved in
 
 8 these groups on the island of Oahu.  A survey of gang members
 
 9 suggests the number may be much higher.  The problem of gangs,
 
10 however, is not limited to Oahu.
 
11      The prevailing view of youth gangs is that they are menaces
 
12 to society, whether they are drawing graffiti, committing thefts,
 
13 using and selling drugs, in possession of weapons, or engaged in
 
14 violent acts that result in permanent injury or death.  Since
 
15 their acts are frequently criminal in nature, the common practice
 
16 has been to treat them as law violators and attempt to control
 
17 their destructive behaviors through the intervention of law
 
18 enforcement and the justice system.  Increasingly, gang members
 
19 have been viewed as incorrigible.  Punishment or the threat of
 

 
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                                     S.B. NO.           843
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1 punishment is perceived as the only means for protecting society
 
 2 and deterring further destructive behaviors.
 
 3      Too often responses to youth in gangs ignore how these youth
 
 4 become involved in gangs in the first place.  An eight year
 
 5 examination of the subject reveals that most gang youths believe
 
 6 that they are unacceptable in the mainstream because they look
 
 7 different from the racial or ethnic groups that appear to run
 
 8 things.  This low self-esteem is enhanced by poverty; a history
 
 9 of few successful role models; and physical, emotional, and
 
10 sexual abuse.
 
11      Additional obstacles faced by gang members include living in
 
12 high crime neighborhoods where alcohol and drug abuse, crime, and
 
13 violence have become learned lifestyles.  Youth who turn to gangs
 
14 don't believe they will live long enough to graduate, so they see
 
15 no point in attending school.  Consequently, high school
 
16 graduation rates are low and unemployment is high.  Gang members
 
17 often seek refuge on the streets from crowded living conditions;
 
18 and since generations of family members have experienced second
 
19 class status they perceive themselves as second class citizens.
 
20      Gang members appear to be aware that their lives are
 
21 precarious.  While they may hope for something better, they may
 
22 be uncertain about what to do to improve their lives.  The
 
23 frustration and anger that they experience results in destructive
 

 
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                                     S.B. NO.           843
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1 acts toward themselves and others.  A study completed by Adult
 
 2 Friends for Youth among gangs with whom it works revealed that
 
 3 over thirty per cent of the gang members surveyed have
 
 4 contemplated suicide.  Many gang members have friends who have
 
 5 committed suicide.  Not infrequently, they will put themselves in
 
 6 harms way, not caring whether they live or die.  One gang member
 
 7 was quoted in a newspaper story as saying, "I was just waiting
 
 8 for death to claim my worthless soul."  Thus, the problem of
 
 9 youth gangs appears to be one that is at least as much a mental
 
10 health problem as a police and juvenile justice problem.
 
11      According to the National Resource Center for Youth
 
12 Services, Hawai`i has the only replicable model for therapeutic
 
13 youth gang intervention in the United States.  This is the
 
14 Redirectional Method published in the book Toward a Gang
 
15 Solution: The Redirectional Method.  This model has been applied
 
16 primarily in Kalihi, Oahu, but used in other communities as well.
 
17 Over four years, this model has increased high school graduation
 
18 rates of gang members from an average of twenty per cent to an
 
19 average of seventy per cent.  For some groups the average is
 
20 ninety per cent.  Gang members have acknowledged a reduction in
 
21 alcohol and drug abuse.  Many have become successfully employed
 
22 and gone on to higher education, and gangs have come to an end.
 
23 Thus, it has been demonstrated that youth gang members are not
 

 
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                                     S.B. NO.           843
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1 necessarily incorrigible lost causes and that they can be
 
 2 rehabilitated.
 
 3      The legislature also finds that the State has no
 
 4 rehabilitation plan or program for members of youth gangs. 
 
 5      The purpose of this Act is to provide funds to the office of
 
 6 youth services through the department of human services to
 
 7 develop a program based on the Redirectional Method to
 
 8 rehabilitate and integrate members of youth gangs into the
 
 9 mainstream culture, thus significantly reducing youth gangs in
 
10 Hawaii and the destructive and criminal behaviors with which they
 
11 are associated.
 
12      SECTION 2.  There is appropriated out of the general
 
13 revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $1,000,000, or so much
 
14 thereof as may be necessary for the fiscal biennium 1999-2001, to
 
15 implement a program for the rehabilitation of members of youth
 
16 gangs based on the Redirectional Method.
 
17      SECTION 3.  The sum appropriated shall be expended by the
 
18 department of human services for the purposes of this Act.
 
19      SECTION 4.  This Act shall take effect on July 1, 1999.
 
20 
 
21                           INTRODUCED BY:  _______________________