Sanna King Dissertation May 2020 FINAL

THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE: YOUTH, SCHOOLS, AND JAILS IN HAWAIʻI

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

SOCIOLOGY

MAY 2020

Sanna King

Dissertation Committee: David T. Johnson, Chairperson Meda Chesney-Lind Nandita Sharma Marina Karides David Stannard

Keywords: youth punishment, school-to-prison pipeline, juvenile justice, feminist criminology, colonial criminology, ethnography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My academic journey would not have been possible without the love and support of so many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Mom, Rauni Prittinen King, and Dr.

Mimi Guarneri for their wisdom, guidance, patience, and encouragement through this process.

My educational journey and this study could not have happened without their continuous support and belief in me. I would also like to thank my Dad, Mark King, and his wife, Linda Inskeep, for their love and encouragement through this process. Thank you to my brother, Sulo King. Thank you to my San Diego family: Dr. Liz Kaback, Ruth Kronenberg, Anna and Chris Moon, Becky and John LeBlanc, Angie Polk, Deja Polk, Devonn Polk, The Miralles (Lauren, Donald, Luke, and Micah), and Danny and Andrea Inskeep. Thank you to my sweet fluff ball Shorty, my dog, who brought me so much joy, companionship, and emotional support during some of the more lonely times of dissertation writing.

My deepest appreciation goes to my dissertation committee who assisted me on this research journey with their guidance and encouragement: Dr. David T. Johnson, Dr. Meda

Chesney-Lind, Dr. Nandita Sharma, Dr. Marina Karides, and Dr. David Stannard. I especially thank Dr. David T. Johnson, my dissertation committee chair. This was not an easy journey and I appreciate all of your guidance and encouragement, especially during the last year of my dissertation writing. I thank other University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty members including Dr.

Katherine Irwin and Dr. Karen Umemoto for inviting me to join their research site, Seaside High

School, and providing guidance during my field research there. I also thank Dr. Wei Zhang, Dr.

Sun-Ki Chai, and Ivee Yamada for their assistance and guidance.

My special thanks are extended to the participants in this study, and the youth I worked with in various programs in Hawaiʻi during the course of my work on this project. I would like

2 to thank my research sites, Seaside High School and the multiple juvenile justice facilities and programs (I cannot share explicitly who or what sites to thank in order to maintain confidentiality of the study participants and research sites) that allowed me access to work with their staff and youth on this project. I’m forever grateful for your support and understanding of this research and the importance of having youth voices heard and their narratives shared.

Thank you to my Hawaiʻi ohana: Stephanie Napoli, Roxann Murphy Smith, Dr. Mari

Kita, Erendira Neri Aldana, Dr. Penn Pantumsinchai, Dr. Nick Chagnon, Nathalie Ewan, Hannah

Liebreich, Dr. Holly Sevier, Dr. Alexis Erum, Ellen Meiser, Alexandra Kisitu, Noreen Kohl,

Omar Bird, Asia Bento, Dr. Sang Pahk, Dr. Colleen Rost-Banik, Tia Roberts, Bo Schaedel, Brian

Bilsky, Eric Keliʻi Beyer, Dr. Lisa Pasko, Ken and Miho Murasky, and Jamie Owens. I would also like to thank my colleagues at SDSU, particularly my writing group, Dr. Megan Welch, Dr.

Anna Kim, Dr. Lauren Schmidt, and Dr. Marie Draz for their support and keeping me sane during the darkest and most difficult moments of writing this dissertation. I would also like to thank my colleagues at Mississippi State University (MSU) for their support during my first year as faculty in the Sociology Department at MSU, as well as my MSU faculty housing family: Dr.

Becky Telle, Dr. Lindsay Seyer, Dr. Chase Seyer, Dr. Shawn Lambert, Dr. Andrew Lawton,

Bonnie Thornton, Dr. Garrett Torbert, Dr. Jordan Hatfield, Dr. Ben Porter, and Dr. Mary Dozier.

You all made my first year in Mississippi an easy and fun experience! In addition, I would like to thank my co-authors Dr. Anthony A. Peguero and Dr. Stuart Henry for their constant encouragment and support. I am forever grateful to call you my colleagues and friends.

Lastly, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation journey without the love and support of my family and friends: Julia Celano, Kyle Vaughn, Lisa D’Amato, Leah Eldridge,

Brendan Vaughn, Kanisha Monteiro, William Bensussen, Ricky Isabella, Alicia Lowery, Paris

Parirokh, Parsa Parirokh, Ana Nelson, Michael Gillen, Dr. Morgan Stanley, Sean Leffers, Kris

Estrada Pozzi, Dr. Luca Estrada Pozzi, Kasey Erokhin, Jesi Williams, Dylan Ambro, Nick

Gannon, Natasha Johnson, Paul Huston, Jess Veliz, Jervae Anthony, Tongo Eisen-Martin (thank you for your activism and introducing me to working with incarcerated youth!), Terrell Owens, and many others I do not have space to name – thank you so much!

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the connections between public schools and the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi. It argues that there is a dynamic relationship between public schools and youth punishment in Hawaiʻi that is evident in a multi-institutional process that I call an institutional maze. The findings of this study also illustrate the resiliency and the agency of teens in Hawaiʻi as they respond to the structural violence of contemporary institutions of control. In addition, the findings demonstrate that teens’ ability to escape or avoid institutional control was not only related to support and resiliency, but also to luck – the chance of not getting caught by social control and institutional agents (parents, teachers, counselors, or law enforcement). To explore the complexity of the relationship between education and youth punishment in Hawaiʻi, I conducted a five-year ethnography between January 2012 and October 2017 on the island of Oʻahu in Hawai’i. I examined the experiences of youth at a high school group- counseling program, teens in a juvenile justice program, adults who had experiences in the juvenile justice system, and community stakeholders who worked with or advocated for youth in Hawaiʻi. My study explores the multiple processes and consequences of youth punishment, especially for those who move between schools and institutions of social control in the institutional maze. The research analyzes the role of racialization and patriarchy in the process of punishment in the institutional maze for marginalized groups in Hawaiʻi. Furthermore, the study shows that colonialism and the ideals of the modern patriarchal nation-state in Hawaiʻi continue to shape the lives of youth through coercion and control and through the interactions of educational, punishment, and legal institutions. My findings contribute to intersectional scholarship on racialization, gender, class, and criminality in the experiences of youth who are navigating the institutional maze. This research also shows the complexity of youth punishment and discipline processes, and it demonstrates the importance of support services (such as creative writing and counseling programs) in assisting youth in their identity formation and in building agency and resiliency in the context of personal hardship and institutions of social control.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 8 THE PRESENT STUDY ...... 10 EDUCATION AND JUSTICE SYSTEMS IN HAWAIʻI ...... 13 Juvenile justice in Hawaiʻi ...... 13 School discipline in Hawaiʻi’s education institutions ...... 18 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS ...... 23 The punitive shift in school discipline...... 23 Zero-tolerance policies ...... 25 School punishment and the school-to-prison pipeline ...... 28 Cultural reproduction in schools ...... 31 Racial and ethnic disparities of the school-to-prison pipeline ...... 33 GENDER AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE ...... 35 Gendered pathways ...... 37 Girls and juvenile justice ...... 39 GENDER AND LOCATING THE SELF ...... 40 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND COLONIALISM ...... 43 Racialized hierarchies and punishment ...... 44 Colonial criminology ...... 47 Colonialism and punishment in the colonization of Hawai‘i ...... 48 ADVANCING THE SCHOLARSHIP ...... 50 CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODS ...... 53 BACKGROUND ...... 53 THE STUDY DESIGN: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ...... 54 FEMINIST ETHNOGRAPHY ...... 57 GROUNDED THEORY ...... 61 SETTINGS ...... 63 Lunch Bunch Groups ...... 64 The YCW Pprogram ...... 65 HM Community Service Program ...... 68 GAINING ENTRÉE ...... 70 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING PROCEDURES ...... 72 RECRUITMENT ...... 76 DATA COLLECTION ...... 79 DATA ANALYSIS ...... 81 STUDY LIMITATIONS ...... 83 CHAPTER 3. THE SPECTRUM OF CHILDHOOD HARDSHIPS ...... 86 YOUTH HARDSHIPS AT HOME ...... 89 ECONOMIC HARDSHIPS ...... 90 FAMILY ...... 98 SEVERE TRAUMA ...... 106 COPING MECHANISMS, ESCAPING, AND RESILIENCY ...... 111 CONCLUSION ...... 117 CHAPTER 4. PUSHED OUT: ADOLESCENCE AND THE STRUGGLE WITH EDUCATIONAL ENGAGEMENT ...... 121 HAWAIʻI YOUTH AND RACIALIZED PUNISHMENT AND CONTROL IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ...... 125 RACISM AND RACIALIZED CONTROL IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ...... 127

UNSTABLE SUPPORT AT SCHOOL ...... 135 ZERO-TOLERANCE AND PUNITIVE POLICIES AND PRACTICES ...... 142 MENTAL HEALTH AND DISABILITIES ...... 146 CONCLUSION ...... 150 CHAPTER 5. THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE ...... 152 THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE ...... 154 INSTABILITY ...... 157 SEEKING SAFETY ...... 158 STATE-RAISED KIDS AS CROSSOVER YOUTH ...... 165 SCHOOLS AS PART OF THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE ...... 171 SAFE SPACES ...... 174 AVOIDING THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE ...... 177 CONCLUSION ...... 181 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION ...... 183 COLONIALISM AND JUVENILE JUSTICE ...... 190 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LITERATURE ...... 192 STUDY IMPLICATIONS ...... 195 APPENDIX A. LIST OF ACRONYMS ...... 200 APPENDIX B. LOKĀHI WHEEL ...... 201 APPENDIX C. FAMILY COURT STAFF INTERVIEW GUIDE ...... 202 APPENDIX D. INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR JUSTICE-INVOLVED YOUTH ...... 203 APPENDIX E. ADULTS WITH EXPERIENCE AS TEENS IN JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVIEW GUIDE ...... 204 APPENDIX F. COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS INTERVIEW GUIDE ...... 206 REFERENCES ...... 208

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

Alyssa was in seventh grade when she was arrested on campus along with three of her friends for writing a threatening message on a school bathroom wall. When the school security guard called her and her friends out of class, she expected to be sent to the principal’s office, not met by police officers outside. She had been in trouble at school before, for talking back or having an attitude, but this was her first arrest. She recalled thinking she was “going to prison forever” as she was handcuffed, put in the back seat of the police car. She was taken to the police station and questioned. After being held for about six hours she was released to her grandmother who was her legal guardian at the time. Alyssa was suspended from school for a week and thought the incident was behind her. Yet a year later, she received a court summons to appear to answer for the case, recreating her fear and confusion all over again.

Alyssa and I were sitting on a sandy beach in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi as she took a break during her court-mandated community service, the outcome of her court case, to share her story with me. Her narrative illustrates one of many pathways into the juvenile justice system, as well as the harsh punishments young people experience at school. The result of these pathways has been an increasing rate of young people, especially girls, coming in contact with the juvenile justice system (Morris 2016). Several scholars (Kupchik 2010; King, Rusoja, and Peguero 2018; Simon

2007) have referred to this development as the “school-to-prison pipeline” (STPP). The school- to-prison pipeline present in the United States education system refers to the accumulation of crime control mechanisms such as law enforcement, punitive policies, and surveillance technologies in schools, which increases the probability of student involvement in the juvenile justice system through direct and indirect pathways (Cobb 2009; Giroux 2003; Hall 2010;

Hirschfield 2008; Hirschfield and Celinska 2011; Kupchik 2010; Raible and Irizarry 2010;

Simon 2007; Theriot 2009). In this study, this was particularly present through punitive zero- tolerance policies in Hawaiʻi public schools. Alyssa was one of many youths in Hawaiʻi who have experienced the criminalization of school discipline that resulted in their entry into the juvenile justice system.

Prior to the mid-1990s, disciplinary punishments for behavioral misconduct would primarily have been addressed internally by school officials. The criminalized punitive approach to school discipline that Alyssa experienced is reflective of an increase in punitive policies, particularly zero-tolerance policies, during the 1990s. This escalation from school official and parental discipline to criminal justice-like punishments moved control from an informal private matter to a formal public shaming. Zero-tolerance policies are policies “that punish all offenses severely, no matter how minor” (Skiba and Peterson 1999:373). Zero-tolerance policies using severe punishments have resulted in an increase in school suspension and expulsion, an expansion of offenses that warrant disciplinary and criminalization actions, and an increased presence of law enforcement and surveillance on school campuses.

The shift from private social controls to public criminal justice-like shaming that

Garfinkel (1956: 420) designated as “status degradation ceremonies” were designed to change students’ social status to a lesser value, through which their public identity “is transformed into something looked on as lower in the local scheme of social types.” This is part of the secondary deviance process publicly labeling them as delinquent youth (Lemert 1967). A persistent feature among youth labeled as ‘delinquent’ is their inability or failure to “establish a meaningful and sustainable connection with schools” (Morris 2016: 2). The lost relationship to school is intensified by the over reliance of exclusionary discipline in public schools that are disrupting the important bond young people can develop with education. Education is not only an important

9 socializing agent, but also a protective factor in preventing youth delinquency (Sandahl 2016;

Hirschfield 2004), such that removing them from it exposes them to more delinquent influences rather than insulating them from these.

The present study

The research for this study focuses on the intricacy of the connection between schools and the juvenile justice system and the resiliency and agency of teens in Hawaiʻi to respond to the structural violence of contemporary institutions of control. I found there are three main processes occurring: 1) There is a complex relationship between education and youth punishment in Hawaiʻi that is evident in the structure of what I refer to as the insitutional maze; 2) Youth demonstrated resilency and agency in navigating insitutional control mechanisms presented to them by the instituional maze; 3) Teens ability to escape or completely avoid insitutional control was not only due to support or resiliency, but also by chance of not getting caught by social control or institutional agents (parents, teachers, counselors, or law enforcement).

To explore the complexity of the relationship between education and youth punishment in

Hawaiʻi, I conducted a five-year ethnography between January 2012 and October 2017 on

Oʻahu, Hawai’i. I examined the experiences of youth at a high school group-counseling program, teens in a juvenile justice program, adults who had experiences in the juvenile justice system, and community stakeholders who worked with or advocated for youth in Hawaiʻi. This study explored the multiple processes and consequences of youth punishment, especially for those who move between schools and institutions of social control.

Institutions of social control are organizations, structures, traditions, and establishments designed and intended to control various aspects of social behavior both formally and informally.

Institutions of social control include educational institutions, mental health facilities and/or treatment, counseling services, child welfare and safety, and juvenile justice (though some have criticized this broader concept for being too broad to be helpful in explaining such phenomena

Cohen 1985).

Most of the youth in this study were low-income and of Native Hawaiian, Samoan,

Micronesian, or Filipino ancestry confronting multiple forms of oppression. Therefore, I explored the intersectional complexity of the gendered, racialized, socioeconomic, and colonial legacies in their experiences of being in and out of institutional control in Hawaiʻi. Furthermore, the history of colonization in Hawaiʻi enhanced both the intersecting oppressions youth experienced and the role of inequalities in methods of school discipline, punishment, and school engagement. I discuss intersectionality and multiple oppressions as these are manifest through colonialism in Hawaiʻi and its role in youth delinquency and control.

During the course of my fieldwork, I spent one to two hours a week at each research site during the academic school year (August to May) for five years1. In the time I spent at each site and through interviews with study participants, I discovered a complicated relationship between multiple youth institutions of control that were connected through the services they provided. For this reason, I refer to the complexity of the association of different youth institutions as an institutional maze, rather than a pipeline. The institutional maze is the intersection of different youth institutions (schools, juvenile justice, mental health, and child protective service (CPS)) that create challenging and alternate pathways towards conformity that are confusing and difficult for youth to navigate and/or to escape institutional control. The institutional maze also

1 Altogether, I estimate I spent between 750 and 850 hours doing field work.

11 refers to the multiple programs and interventions to which those youth identified as “at-risk” or who are involved in the juvenile justice system can be subjected.

The analogy of a maze seems appropriate here because it describes a system that has multiple points of entry but is difficult to find the point of exit. As a report on Wisconsin’s juvenile justice system states:

Wisconsin’s juvenile justice system operates like a complex maze with many points of entry. Navigating the maze-like-system is difficult and finding a point of exit is even more difficult. The complexities of the juvenile justice system and the biases that exist within the system are preventing many children in Wisconsin from thriving—particularly children of color (Kids Forward 2018:1).

The maze analogy has also been used to describe the juvenile justice system’s multiple programs as “a maze of uncoordinated plans and goals for youth” within facilities (King 2009:24). I argue that the institutional maze is a complex social control mechanism that functions as a coercive tool to conform youth to Western social norms. The collaboration among different youth institutions into a maze-like structure operates as a form of social and behavioral control of youth that includes exclusionary punishments, as well as the erasure of culture that does not conform to conventional western ideals of normalcy and complacency.

In addition, the unstable support services within education, intervention programming, and the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi have led youth in this study to be drawn further into the institutional maze, as well as to having their resiliency to the hurdles of the maze challenged.

At a micro-level, youth in this study demonstrated resiliency and agency through resisting structural violence and control. For some youth their resistance appeared as delinquency and behavioral misconduct; for others it appeared through processes of out-smarting the adults or the system, and at times confronting adults and their peers when faced with racism and cultural erasure. However, there were teens in this study who were unaware of the colonial oppression of

12 racism and classism that they experienced in their daily lives, especially those who were on probation or had previously been involved in the juvenile justice system. These youth had internalized the notion of individual responsibility for their actions and were blind to the structural violence that provided them with limited options.

Education and justice systems in Hawaiʻi

Education and criminal justice systems played, and continue to be key components in the colonization of the Hawaiian islands (Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011). The disproportionate rate of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders incarcerated both at the adult criminal justice system and the juvenile justice system are indicative of contemporary processes of criminalization and control that perpetuate colonialism in Hawaiʻi. As noted in a report released in 2010 by the

Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA):

Native Hawaiians make up 24 percent of the general population of Hawaiʻi, but 27 percent of all arrests, 33 percent of people in pretrial detention, 29 percent of people sentenced to probation, 36 percent admited to prison in 2009, 39 percent of the incarcerated population, 39 percent of releases on parole, and 41 percent of parole revovations (Office of Hawaiian Affairs 2010:8).

Similar to the adult criminal justice system, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.

Juvenile justice in Hawaiʻi

In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought attention to correctional officers’ abuse of wards at Hawaiʻi Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF), as well as a host of other issues. These included insufficient programming, inadequate training of staff, poor living

13 conditions, sexual assault, harassment of gay and transgender youth, and a lack of privacy in the girl’s facility. The complaints led to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice Civil

Rights Division. In a report from the Division, HYCF is described as “existing in a state of chaos” (DOJ 2005:3). The investigation concluded that the rights of “youth confined at HYCF” had been violated (DOJ 2005).

In addition to the ACLU and U.S. Department of Justice investigation into conditions of confinement at HYCF, there were multiple studies and reports that indicated the overrepresentation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth in the Hawaiʻi juvenile justice system (Umemoto et al. 2012; Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011). These studies found a disproportionate number of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth at every level of the system (Umemoto et al. 2012; Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011). In 2011, There was a disproportionate number of Native Hawaiian youth in detention. While Native Hawaiians only make up 30% of the overall Hawaii youth population, they comprised 56% of the youth who had been detained (Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011). When examining juvenile arrests, researchers also found that Native Hawaiian youth had a higher rate of arrest than other ethnic groups, comprising 42% of all arrests between 2000-2010 (Umemoto et al. 2012). Hawaiʻi had overall higher rates of juvenile arrests between 2008-2012 compared to national juvenile arrest rates. For example, in 2012, 6,719.10 per 100,000 youth were arrested in Hawaiʻi, in comparison to national rates of 3,968 per 100,000 young people ages 10-17. A longitudinal study such as

Umemoto et al.’s (2012) provides further evidence for the long-term trend of such statistics.

Total Juvenile Arrests 2008-2012 per 100,000 (ages 10-17) 12,000.00

10,000.00

8,000.00

6,000.00

4,000.00

2,000.00

0.00 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Hawaii United States

Researchers also noticed a gendered pattern when looking at the difference between the number of Native Hawaiian girls versus boys being detained (Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011;

Mayeda 2010). In a study by the Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General (Mayeda 2010) examining recidivism rates of youth incarcerated at HYCF between 2005-2007, they found an overrepresentation of Native Hawaiian youth detained. Their sample included 232 youth, 177 boys, and 55 girls. Of the 55 girls detained at HYCF, Native Hawaiian girls comprised 69% of girls who were incarcerated. Whereas, of the 177 boys detained, Native Hawaiian boys made up

53% of boys incarcerated at HYCF (Mayeda 2010).

There were also a gendered difference between youth incarcerated at HYCF and their history of risk factors. Mayeda (2010) reported that when looking at the youths’ histories of status offenses such as truancy and running away, girls had a slightly higher rate than boys for both offenses. Of the girl’s detained at HYCF, 90% had a history of running away, and 71% had a history of truancy. For the boy’s population, 69% of boys had a history of running away and

63% had a history of truancy.

Detained Youth Status Offenses 2005-2007 (Source: Mayeda 2010) 100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0% Truancy Runaway

Boys Girls

In addition, Mayeda (2010) found substance use history to be similar for both boys and girls. However, Mayeda (2010) reported a higher rate of hard drug use among girls (73%) than boys (40%).

Detained Substance Use History 2005-2007 (Source: Mayeda 2010) 100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0% Alcohol Use Marijuana Use Hard Drugs Boys Girls

Even more alarming were the gendered differences in histories of sexual abuse and suicide ideation. Of the 55 girls in the study, 55% reported a history of sexual abuse and 55% suicide ideation. These data were consistent with feminist criminologists’ arguments that there are a high rate of histories of sexual abuse among girls in the juvenile justice system, supporting the theory of a gendered pathway to delinquency and crime (Bloom, Owen, and Covington 2004;

Chesney-Lind 1999; Lopez 2017). These data were concerning to both researchers and community stakeholders advocating for improvements to the conditions of confinement and for preventative programming to decrease the number of youth entering the juvenile justice system.

Umemoto et al. found that detention “exerts a greater impact on youth of color than white youth in the areas of education, employment, and mental health” (Umemoto et al. 2012:5).

Detained Youth Abuse & Self-Harm 2005-2007 (Source: Mayeda 2010) 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Physcial Abuse Sexual Abuse Sucide Ideation Suicide Attempt

Boys Girls

The knowledge of the negative impacts that detention has on youth resulted in the Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974 which was designed to deinstitutionalize and decrease detention in juvenile justice facilities in the United States. More recently in 2014

Hawaiʻi enacted House Bill 2490 to “reduce secure confinement, strengthen community supervision and focus resources on practices proved to reduce recidivism” (The Pew Charitable

Trusts 2014:1). Superficially this objective seemed to be achieved. For example, the Hawaiʻi

Juvenile Justice Working Group found a 41% decline in detainments between 2004-2013.

However, the proportion of youth commited for misdemeaners increased from 47% in 2004 to

61% in 2013 (The Pew Charitable Trusts 2014). In 2013, 72% of detained youth at the Hawaiʻi

Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF) were adjudicated for nonviolent offenses. Furthermore, data indicated that although detention in Hawaiʻi juvenile facilities declined by 41%, the length of commitments were longer. The length of stay increased from 2.5 month in 2004 to 7.2 months in

2013 (The Pew Charitable Trusts 2014). The data also indicated high recidivism rates of 75% of youth released from secure confinement in Hawaiʻi facilities “were re-adjudicated or convicted as an adult within three years” (The Pew Charitable Trusts 2014:4).

School discipline in Hawaiʻi’s education institutions

In addition, Hawaiʻi public schools have faced their own set of challenges. An ACLU report published in June 2019 based on data collected by the Civil Rights Data Collection, showed that in 2015-2016 school year, Hawaiʻi public schools had the highest rates of suspension and “students missed twice as many school days due to suspensions as their peers nationally” (Essoyan June 14, 2019). The ACLU report showed 41 suspended days for every 100 students across the state of Hawaiʻi compared to the national average of 23 days. In addition, the

18 report indicated that students with disabilities and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students were impacted the most. When broken down by individual schools, such as Seaside High School

(one of the research sites in this study), it showed that out-of-school suspension and expulsion rates were higher for Native Hawaiian students in 2015.

Seaside High School Punishment Civil Rights Data Collection (survey year 2015) 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Total School Enrollment In-School Supspensions Out-of-School Suspension Expulsions (N=12) (N=736) (N=10) (N=51)

Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Asian White

The disparity ratio for Native Hawaiian youth receiving out-of-school suspensions at Seaside

High School was 1.09 and for expulsions 1.39. These disparity ratios indicate an overrepresentation of Native Hawaiian youth receiving exclusionary punishments resulting in missed school days.

However, in July 2019 the Hawaiʻi Department of Education (HDOE) refuted the numbers reported by the ACLU, indicating a discrepency in the data collection and analysis. The

HDOE hired an outside consulting firm to reanalyze the data. The preliminary review of the data by the consulting firm was reported in August 2019 showing that Hawaiʻi’s suspension rates

19 were 41% less than previously reported. The corrected data now showed 24 missed school days due to suspension which was close to the national average of 23 missed school days. However, the data also showed 50 school days missed due to suspension for students with disabilities which was higher than the national average of 44 days for students with disabilities (Essoyan

August 18, 2019).

As with schools nationwide, the HDOE has adopted punitive policies to address school misconduct under the umbrella of zero-tolerance policies. Chapter 19 is a statewide HDOE discipline code that states the HDOE policies for various discipline and misconduct infractions on public school campuses or at school related or sponsored events. The discipline code is divided by the most serious cases (Class A) and dangerous infractions to minor and least harm to self or others (Class D). In August 2019, the Hawaiʻi Board of Education (HBOE) voted to include bullying, cyberbullying, and harrassment under Class A offenses, the most serious offenses in the Chapter 19 discipline code. The only offenses in which consequences are clearly stated in Chapter 19 are those that fall under ACT 90 of possession of a firearm. ACT 90 refers to:

“Any student who possesses, sells, or uses a dangerous weapon, switchblade knife or any improperly used knife, intoxicating substance(s), or illicit drug(s) while attending school may be excluded from attending school for up to ninety-two school days. Any student who reasonably appears to be under the influence of, have consumed or used intoxicating substance(s) or illicit drug(s) prior to attending school or attending department-supervised activities held on campus, or other department of education premises, on department of education transportation, or during a department of education sponsored activity or event on or off school property may be excluded from attending school for up to ninety-two school days and the school shall administer a substance use screening tool to determine whether there is a need for the student to be referred for substance abuse assessment” (Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules §8-19-6).

Possession of a firearm has the consequence of a mandatory one-year suspension from

HDOE public schools. However, while Chapter 19 includes policies for punishment of offenses,

20 discipline, including for ACT 90 offenses, remained at the discretion of the school principal as most offenses listed in the Chapter 19 discipline code do not connect consequences to offenses.

HDOE officials have been quoted in media reports as indicating they recognize that harsh and exclusionary punishments such as suspension are not the answer to addressing student misconduct and indicate an awareness of counseling-based services and other interventions as important in behavioral change (Essoyan August 18, 2019). The inconsistencies in the data collection and reporting brings into question what is actually occurring with punishment in

Hawaiʻi schools, and what are student’s and young people’s experience with schools and school discipline. Furthermore, disparities in suspension rates for students with disabilities and Native

Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students point to the systematic stratification of the education system in Hawaiʻi.

Racialization and class stratification are apparent in educational opportunities for students in Hawaiʻi. Historically there has been a divide between students who attend public schools in

Hawaiʻi and those who attend private schools. Public schools were developed based on industrial and agricultural curriculum to educate students for vocational professions (Beyer 2012). Private school attendance has historically been a prominent option for students of affluent families or those who can afford annual tuition. Private schools were established in Hawaiʻi in the 19th century with the founding of Punahou and ʻIolani by missionaries and the founding of

Kamehameha Schools in 1887 by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop as an all-boys school for

Native Hawaiian youth, and in 1894 opened its girls school. The resources available at private schools are significantly different from those available to public school students, such as books, technology, classroom size, and extra curricular activities. Private school attendance in Hawaiʻi in 2015 was above the national average with 15 percent of student’s grades K-12 enrolled.

Fall Enrollment for Grades K-12, public and Private Schools in Hawai'i 2015 (Source: 2015 Hawai'i Superintendent Annual Report and NCES) 100.00% 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% National Private Hawai'i Private National Public Hawai'i Public Schools Schools Schools Schools

However, since 2008 private school attendance has declined by three percent with closures of 17 private elementary and high schools have closed statewide (Essoyan 2018). According to the

National Center for Education Statistics, the national average of private school attendance was

10 percent of the school-age population in 2015. From 2008-2018, across the state of Hawaiʻi, private school attendance dropped from 36,724 in 2016-1017 school year to 36,259 in the 2017-

2018 school year. In 2018 the median tuition for private schools in Honolulu was $12,564 (HAIS

Annual Report 2018). The high cost of attending private school was not an option for many families in Hawaiʻi, including participants in this study.

Theoretical frameworks

To understand the complexities of the social control of youth through the use of punitive sanctions in the Hawaiian context, three main theoretical frameworks are used to approach this study. The overarching theoretical framework is “governing through crime” (Simon 2007). This perspective argues that governments utilize the fear of crime in their governance as a means to legitimate their authority and power in mechanisms of social control, including school discipline.

A second theoretical framework comes from feminist theory which supplements the limited critical discussion of gender and intersectionality found in the governing through crime literature. Intersectionality extends to governing-through-crime framework by taking into consideration the multiple identities of individuals and/or groups in order to comprehend the complexity of cumulative discrimination and disadvantages they experience. I also examine feminist criminology’s contributions to the literature on girls, punishment, and the juvenile justice system (Bloom 2003; Brown, Chesney-Lind, and Stein 2013; Chesney-Lind 1999;

Chesney-Lind and Shelden 2014). Colonial criminology is a third theoretical framework used in the research to focus on the racialized and classed stratification of Native Hawaiian and Pacific

Islander youth in systems of punitive social control in Hawaiʻi (Irwin and Umemoto 2016).

Related to this is cultural reproduction theory which argues that schools convey and sustain dominant cultural beliefs that reproduce gendered, racialized, and class-based power relations.

The punitive shift in school discipline.

The diverse, contrary, and overlapping youth institutions have emerged as an outcome of a succession of policies that are legacies from different eras, programs, and practices. However, these policies, regardless of era, program, or practice, are influenced by wider trends in the

23 criminal justice system of governance which operate as capillaries of control or technologies of power (Foucault 1977). The concept of “governing through crime” was introduced by Jonathan

Simon (2007), who built on the ideas of Foucault (1977) and Garland (2001). The core concept is that governments have become obsessed with crime and are utilizing the fear of crime to exercise, administer, and legitimate increasing state power. Simon’s (2007:4) governing-through- crime thesis is premised on the idea that crime and crime metaphors have become “central to the exercise of authority in America.” Many scholars agree that the use of harsh punishments on students in schools is reflective of the broader punitive shift in crime control in the United States

(Garland 2001; Simon 2007; Kupchik 2010). Simon (2007) particularly discusses how policy- makers like to draw citizens’ attention to their own vulnerability and potentiality for victimization, thus creating moral panics that lead to fear-based policies and citizens’ support for such policies (see also Garland 2001).

Like Foucault (1977), Simon (2007) argues that a focus on crime and crime control in

American governance is not restricted to the criminal justice system. It also permeates into other institutions such as the family, education, and the workplace. For example, in public education, a trend of American schools embracing tough-on-crime strategies to monitor and control school misconduct, violence, and drug use has been documented (Simon 2007). These strategies developed in relation to moral panics over a perceived growth in youth violence and drug use during the 1990s, as well as the emergence of school violence and mass shootings of the late

1990s and into our current era.

Scholars expanding on Simon’s (2007) thesis argue that the tough-on-crime discourse has become central to the American school experience and is used to justify an increased use of punitive ideologies and governing styles designed to eliminate ‘problem’ students (Hirschfield

2008; King et al. 2018; King and Bracy 2019; Muschert et al. 2014; Muschert and Peguero

2010). The process of criminalizing youth ranges from increasing surveillance and policing of youth, implementing zero-tolerance policies in schools, and incorporating criminal justice technologies and tactics in everyday security measures on school campuses. Many of these practices lead to exclusionary punishments that function as a “symbolic form of criminalization”

(Hirschfield 2008:82). Exclusionary punishments are those that exclude students from the classroom or school activities through suspension, expulsion, detention, and in-school suspension. Indeed, an increase in suspensions and expulsions for disorderly conduct and defiant types of behavior indicates that schools are using harsh punishments and policies to remove

‘problem’ students (Hirschfield 2008; Muschert et al. 2014). The identification of students as

‘problems’ or ‘troublemakers’ can lead to student disengagement and students feeling excluded or unsupported because of increased punitive punishments (Hirschfield 2008; Muschert et al.

2014; Rios 2011). The punitive turn in schools has been tied to the adoption of nation-wide

‘zero-tolerance’ policies that emerged from the War on Drugs campaigns of the 1970s and

1980s.

Zero-tolerance policies

During the mid-1990s, school districts began adopting zero-tolerance policies to address the growing perceptions of youth violence and substance use. These concerns influenced the passage of the 1994 Guns-Free Schools Act that prohibited the possession of weapons on campus and promoted the implementation of zero-tolerance policies in schools receiving federal funding.

Since its implementation in the mid-1990s, it is estimated that 90% of American schools enacted some form of a zero-tolerance policy (Muschert and Peguero 2010). Zero-tolerance policies in

25 schools are designed to severely punish rule breakers regardless of the circumstances and contexts of the case or incident. These policies began as mandatory expulsion for one year for a student bringing a gun to school, as required by the 1994 Guns-Free School Act. They have since expanded to include a range of student incidents including violence, drug or alcohol possession and/or use, harassment, vandalism, dress code violations, disobedience, making threats, and truancy (Cobb 2009; Giroux 2003; Hall 2010; Muschert et al. 2014; Skiba and Peterson 1999).

The literature on school discipline and punishment generally attributes the criminalization of students to the implementation and policing of harsh zero-tolerance policies. However, this is also part of a wider shift in patterns of governance in the U.S. more broadly.

There is a growing critique against zero-tolerance policies (Bracy 2011; Giroux 2003;

Muschert et al. 2014; Skiba 2015). Critics argue that these policies do not make schools safer and instead foster negative school environments. Academic engagement and achievement are related to positive school environments, and the implementation of harsh punitive policies and practices such as zero-tolerance may contribute to a negative rather than positive school environment and therefore negatively impact academic education (Bracy 2011; Giroux 2003; Muschert et al.

2014). Schools that enforce rules and distribute punishment under zero-tolerance may also impact students’ perceptions of school rules and negatively affect their engagement and achievement through the educational process (Bracy 2011; Kupchik 2010).

In particular, zero-tolerance policies have increased school disengagement through the use of suspensions and expulsions for both major and minor offenses (Mendez and Knoff 2003;

Skiba and Peterson 1999). School disengagement is a practice or policy that creates an uncomfortable environment for students by distancing them from social and academic support, which can then reduce attendance, while exposing students to a variety of negative forces in their

26 communities (Bowditch 1993; Bracy 2011; Giroux 2003; Hall 2010; Hirschfield and Celinska

2011; Irwin, Davidson, and Hall-Sanchez 2012; Kupchik 2010; Raible and Irizarry 2010;

Simkins et al. 2004). The high rates of suspension and expulsion for mostly minor school offenses indicate a reliance on harsh and punitive forms of punishment within schools, thereby reflecting the changes in school governance. Moreover, the literature notes that the majority of school suspensions occur for minor offenses that do not pose a threat to school safety (Mendez and Knoff 2003; Skiba and Peterson 1999). Minor offenses that result in suspension and expulsion include tardiness, truancy, disrespect, and disorderly conduct (Hirschfield and

Celinska 2011; Kupchik 2010; Muschert and Peguero 2010).

Furthermore, an increase in arrests on school campuses is consistent with theories of the presence of police officers on campuses, such as school resource officers (SROs), contributing to the criminalization of student behavior and shifts in perceptions of what types of behaviors are viewed as deviant (Cobb 2009; Hirschfield 2008; Hirschfield and Celinska 2011; Theriot 2009;

Welch and Payne 2010). This formalization of social control and its public labeling of youthful offenders, results in public shaming that can be difficult to recover from, particularly for those students who are already trauma-impacted and, in the case of male youth, who are challenged by conflicting identities in relation to their own masculinity, that in the extreme can lead to school shootings (Kimmel and Mahler 2003; Klein 2012).

Critics of zero-tolerance also argue that the harsh punitive policies push students out of schools and into the criminal justice system (Bracy 2011; Giroux 2003; Hall 2010; Muschert et al. 2014; Skiba and Peterson 1999). As mentioned earlier, removing students from learning environments through disciplinary measures such as suspension and/or expulsion can result in a variety of negative outcomes including negative attitude towards school, academic failure, and

27 dropping out altogether (Brooks, Schiraldi, and Ziedenberg 1999; Mendez and Knoff 2003;

Nichols, Ludwin, and Iadicola 1999; Welch and Payne 2012). Suspensions increase the likelihood of further school misconduct and can also potentially result in further deviance and subsequent police interaction. Suspended students are unsupervised for long periods of the day and possibly associate with other, out-of-school youths who engage in deviant behavior (Wallace et al. 2008; Welch and Payne 2012). Moreover, there is a correlation between dropping out and involvement with the juvenile and/or adult criminal justice system (Welch and Payne 2012). This interface between education in schools and the criminal justice system has been referred to as the

“school-to prison pipeline.” Although, as I have argued earlier, in practice the pipeline presents too linear a process, that in reality is more chaotic and complex, so this concept needs further analysis.

School punishment and the school-to-prison pipeline

The hardening of social control in the school setting has created linkages from schools to the criminal justice system. Research on school discipline has shown a rise in school surveillance and harsh punishment practices that are changing the climate of schools (Hirschfield 2008;

Mayer and Leone 1999; Simson 2014; Tanner-Smith and Fisher 2016). Many campuses reflect fortress-like structures and have instated policies that involve tactics such as using physical barriers to prevent crime, limiting access for unauthorized individuals, and addressing ‘problem behaviors’ with relatively harsh punitive responses (Simon 2007:208). As discussed in the previous section, punitive responses include suspension or expulsion, often for relatively minor offenses. Some scholars have argued that the increase in various surveillance techniques has turned schools into highly monitored environments that resemble prisons (Kupchik 2016; Simon

2007). Others have explained that these policies emerged as an over-reaction to concerns about an apparent rise in school violence, particularly after the highly publicized school shootings of the 1990s, which they have described as “The Columbine Effect” (Muschert et al. 2014).

However, this explanation may be invalid as the rise of the rise of punitive measures was already underway prior to the Columbine school massacre (Skiba and Peterson 2000).

Implementing harsh punishments and inserting criminal justice approaches to addressing school violence, crime, and misconduct have fed into the idea of the school-to-prison pipeline

(STPP) (Meiners and Winn 2010; Redfield and Nance 2016). As noted by McGrew (2016), one of the first uses of a pipeline metaphor relating to schools and prisons was by Bill Ayers in his

1997 ethnography of the Chicago juvenile justice system. Ayers (1997:vx) described the Chicago

Juvenile Court as, “a straight line between failing schools and burgeoning youth jails.” The term

“school-to-prison pipeline” became popularized after a 2003 conference at Northeastern

University, and the subsequent publications of those conference papers in a special issue of New

Directions for Youth Development (McGrew 2016). In that issue, Wald and Losen (2003:11) defined the STPP to “…depict a journey through school that becomes increasingly punitive and isolating for its travelers…Without a safety net, the likelihood that these same youths will wind up arrested and incarcerated increases sharply.”

Initial empirical research on the STPP focused on examining the connections between the overrepresentation of marginalized students subject to school discipline measures and the juvenile justice system. In an ethnographic study of girls in California, Flores (2016) argued that wraparound services designed to provide seamless support for girls as they exited juvenile detention centers and entered alternative schools were a form of surveillance, which would result in the girls’ return to detention in what he called “wraparound incarceration.” Other studies have

29 focused on the normalization of hyper-surveillance and the high-security environments of schools. Kupchik’s (Kupchik 2010:4) ethnographic study of four high schools, found discipline strategies for student misconduct to be “excessive and counterproductive.” Scholars have also found that increased harsh punishments and strict surveillance increases student misconduct

(Kupchik 2009, 2010; Skiba and Peterson 2000). The empirical research on the STPP focused on specific punishment processes that simplified the complexity of the relationship between schools, jails, and control.

However, the term “School-to-Prison Pipeline” (STPP) can often be misleading as it may lead to a conception that there is one pathway from schools to jails or that the trajectory is linear with a singular experience. Critics of the STPP have argued that the metaphor is undertheorized, simplistic, and ignores “the complexity of the interaction of social phenomena” (McGrew

2016:365). There is not one path from schools to jails; rather, there are multiple pathways that affect student groups differently. Student experiences with school punishment and the juvenile justice system are multifaceted and not one and the same (Irwin and Umemoto 2016; Kupchik

2016). The process does not simply end when a youth exits a school and enters the juvenile justice system or exits the juvenile justice system and reenters a school. As such, the ‘pipeline’ is more chaotic than linear, thus my argument to sustain a maze rather than a pipeline analogy.

Mazes are challenging systems of pathways with multiple twists and turns. It can be frightening and confusing as it is easy to get lost by making wrong turns that require the frustrating process of retracing your steps and choosing a different path in order to find the exit. The complexities of the institutional maze in juvenile justice not only include institutional and legal requirements regarding compulsory education for youth in the United States, but also involve the challenges teens face at home or in their personal life.

A rise in punitive policies may be more accurately explained by the shifts in patterns of governance to more ‘tough-on-crime’ approaches. Legislative responses to societal conceptions of crime and school violence, such as zero-tolerance policies, have changed how we view and address problems of school safety, school discipline, and classroom control (Addington 2019;

King and Bracy 2019; Tanner-Smith, Fisher, Addington, and Gardella 2018). The phenomenon of school shootings and threats of other forms of violence have instilled fear that schools are unsafe environments in need of increased security and surveillance (Kupchik and Bracy 2009).

Despite that, school shootings and mass violence are actually extremely rare events and have declined since the mid-1990s (Fox and Fridel 2018). American schools continue to be one of the safest environments for youth (Kupchik 2016; Muschert et al. 2014). However, the regular occurrence of single instances of extreme violence fueled by media amplification, generates a national fear that feeds into the governance through crime strategies. This plays back with more intensive security, training, and preparedness that is as much designed for control as for actual safety.

Cultural reproduction in schools

Schools are one of several critical socializing agents that upholds social differences and systems of stratification. The distribution of cultural capital plays a role in replicating social inequalities (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990; Kupchik 2009; MacLeod 1987). The role of schools as socializing agents that reproduce cultural capital is referred to as “cultural reproduction.” Cultural reproduction theory argues that schools convey and sustain dominant cultural beliefs that reproduce power relations. Students from the dominant class “…inherit substantially different cultural capital than do working-class children” (MacLeod 1987:13–

14)(MacLeod 1987:13–14) . As sites of reproducing class and power relations, schools are

31 instrumental in colonialism. Bray (1993:334) discussed the role of schools in colonization stating, “Schools were primarily designed to meet the conceptions and needs of the colonizer rather than the colonized, and this influenced the amount, type and availability of education.”

There is an expectation of students coming to school already instilled with cultural capital of the dominant class (that of the colonizers) that is then rewarded by the education system and excludes those who do not possess it or are unable to receive it (Dumais 2002).

“Habitus” is another aspect of cultural reproduction theory that is important to consider.

Habitus is the way people view the world based on their beliefs that influences their actions and responses to it (Bourdieu 1984; Bourdieu 1994; MacLeod 1987). The internalization of beliefs and values can inform thoughts towards societal structures and institutions, such as school

(MacLeod 1987). If an institution such as schools tailor towards the cultural capital of groups in positions of power, students who do not have such cultural capital or access to it, may feel excluded or be pushed towards different professions or futures (Dumais 2002; Kupchik 2009;

MacLeod 1987). The combination of habitus and cultural reproduction can affect students differently depending on race, class and gender and may impact their perception of themselves and their potential (Dumais 2002). Dumais (2002), notes that while habitus is difficult to measure, it is significant and has more of an effect on school performance than cultural capital, especially for girls. Schools reinforce the uneven distribution of cultural capital when “academic achievement is viewed as a legitimate marker of ability” (Kupchik 2009:293), yet there is an uneven distribution of educational resources and punishment.

Racial and ethnic disparities of the school-to-prison pipeline

The implementation of zero-tolerance policies and harsh punishments have disproportionately impacted minority youth (Hirschfield 2008; Welch and Payne 2010, 2012).

Just as other mechanisms of school discipline reflect the patterns and processes of the criminal justice system, disproportionate punishments for minority students are also reflective of the racially unequal punishment of people of color or institutionalized racism in the American criminal justice system. Studies examining racial differences in school punishment have found that Black youth are more likely to be suspended or expelled than White youth (Kupchik 2010;

Wallace et al. 2008; Welch and Payne 2012).

There seem to be three processes at work that have resulted in this racially disparate outcome. First are the racialized moral panics over minority criminality (Giroux 2003). This means that schools are particularly sensitive to deviance by people of color, even when their behaviors are not substantially different from those of other racial categories. As a result, the behaviors of minority and low-income students are more likely to be targeted by teachers and school administrators, which is made possible because of the “considerable amount of individual-level discretion employed in determining which student behaviors are addressed”

(Welch and Payne 2010:27). Second, zero-tolerance policies have resulted in harsher punishment for students at certain schools, i.e. schools with large Black student populations are typically more punitive (Skiba et al. 2002; Welch and Payne 2012). Third, despite the seeming equality of zero tolerance, its punishments, such as suspension and expulsion, have a disproportionately negative effect on minority students (Crenshaw et al. 2015; Hines-Datriri and Carter Andrews

2017; Skiba 2015). These students may already be at an academic disadvantage and missing important segments of the school curriculum as a result of punishment and may lead them to

33 encounter more risk conducive environments back at home, compared to students from more wealthy environments. Therefore, even though the punishment of suspension seems equal across the board, it can have unequal effects depending on the student’s socioeconomic status.

As mentioned above, studies have found that schools with large populations of black students were more punitive, implying that race indicates harsher punishments and criminalization of minority students (Skiba et al. 2002; Welch and Payne 2010). Racialized crime perspectives are therefore being extended to examine school criminalization. Researchers have also noted that schools label students as being criminals through the implementation of harsh punishments (Hirschfield and Celinska 2011; Theriot 2009). Such criminal labels have effects outside of the school setting and extend beyond the schooling years. Punitive schools are said to habituate students to interactions with law enforcement and surveillance (Kupchik 2010;

Rios 2011; Simon 2007; Wacquant 2001), meaning that students are being labeled at school as criminals and then subsequently treated as such (i.e. harsh punishments). In the end, students become accustomed to being treated as criminals both in and outside of schools. In Lemert’s terms that accept the label and become secondary deviants, behaving now as a result of identity transformation to delinquent (Lemert 1967).

Disproportionate punishment of youth is not just racialized, but also gendered. Scholars have found that Black girls are more likely to experience suspension than White girls, and girls are more likely to experience suspension than boys (Mendez and Knoff 2003). However, some studies have found that boys tend to receive harsher punishments (Welch and Payne 2010) and are more likely to drop out of school than girls (Peguero 2011). Nonetheless, scholars have noted that there could be underlying trauma that girls experience that is not being addressed when misconduct occurs (Morris 2016; Simkins et al. 2004).

Not only have studies found racialized and gendered inequalities in school punishment, but the intersection of race, class, and gender also has a cumulative effect. Morris’s study

(2016:11) found that educators may be prompted to respond more punitively to Black girls who do not conform to traditional gender roles. Black girls “…were more likely than their White or

Latina peers to be reprimanded for being ‘unladylike’.” When student behavior is perceived as disrespectful, irate, or uncontrollable, summons and arrests seem to be justified by school administrators and police officers. The association of such non-criminal behaviors with the juvenile justice system criminalizes students, labels them which impacts their social status and self-perceptions (Morris 2016). Feminist criminologists have brought attention to the experiences of girls in school punishment practices and the juvenile justice system (Addington 2019; Artz

1998; Chesney-Lind 1999; Crenshaw et al. 2015; Flores 2016; Hines-Datiri and Carter Andrews

2017; Irwin and Umemoto 2016; Morris 2016).

Gender and criminal justice

Historically, criminological explanations for youth delinquency have been predominantly male-centered; research on delinquency often used delinquent boys as subjects. Critics of androcentric approaches have noted that there is not one fundamental or universal experience for both men and women. Since the mid-1970s, therefore, feminist criminologists have addressed the importance of including women and girls in discussions of deviance and crime. Feminist researchers have focused on patriarchy as a key framework to understanding girls’ place in criminal and deviant behavior, especially in terms of violence (see Chesney-Lind 1999). Female delinquency and violence have been explained as a response to patriarchal ideologies and the accompanying conditions that exercise social control over girls’ and women’s lives. Patriarchy

35 includes practices and ideologies that support and enforce male domination. As a result, in every institution and every aspect of girls’ and women’s lives, such as families, schools, communities, and work, girls and women are exposed to ideologies and practices that maintain patriarchy through subordination (Artz 1998). Scholars have noted that girls and women have many reasons to be angry, and much of their violence arises from their anger about the countless inequalities and dishonors they experience on a daily basis (Brown 2003). As such, their school deviance can be seen as their resistance to male oppression, as a form of self-help justice as Black (1983) might term it. Moreover, if they are punished for behavior that resists gender controls or social role expectations, then they are being doubly punished, similar to the disproportionate punishment of minorities.

Combining our understandings of race and gender demonstrates that there are diverse experiences in relation to the differential impacts of race, class, and gender, as well as other social issues and experiences within the justice system . Scholars have therefore utilized theories of “multiple oppressions” or “intersectionality” to address this diversity of experiences with crime, violence, and criminal justice (Burgess-Proctor 2006; Crenshaw

1991; Richie 2012). Crenshaw (1991) argued for an intersectional analysis when examining violence against women of color. As noted by Irwin and Umemoto (Irwin and Umemoto

2016:12), “multiple oppressions theories articulate how gender operates in relation with other systematic inequalities like racism and classism…Also, all systems are linked within structural, political, ideological, institutional, and interpersonal social systems.” Feminist contributions to intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991) arguments include examining the role of patriarchy among other forms of oppression youth experience (Chesney-Lind 1999). Female violence may well be a response to patriarchy, but it may also be a response to other forms

36 of gender inequality. Along the same lines, some scholars have introduced a gendered pathways argument to explore how other factors may influence female violence and delinquency.

Gendered pathways

The gendered pathways perspective argues that pathways into crime demonstrate that

“gender matters significantly in shaping criminality” (Bloom, Owen, and Covington 2004:37). It addresses the different life experiences of girls and women that result in pathways in and out of crime and delinquency. Scholars have identified several factors that may lead girls and women down a path towards the criminal justice system. For example, as a general trend, women are more likely than men to experience violent victimizations such as sexual assault, domestic violence, as well as single parent-status (Bloom et al. 2004). The majority of justice-involved girls and women have experienced some form of sexual assault or other forms of trauma

(Chesney-Lind 1999; Simkins et al. 2004). Therefore, the most common pathway to crime for girls and women involves survival tactics and coping strategies for such experiences such as running away and substance abuse (Bloom et al. 2004; Chesney-Lind 1999). Girls have a higher inclination for violent behavior if they had experiences with physical or sexual abuse and lived in concentrated poverty or violent communities (Zahn and Browne 2009). Studies showed a higher chance that girls with histories of victimization would engage in drug and alcohol use and associate with other delinquent youths more often than girls without such histories (Zahn and

Browne 2009).

Female victimization is another source of pain and anger that is captured in the concept of “blurred boundaries” (Daly 1998) among females as victims and offenders. Blurred

37 boundaries refer to girls and women being both victims and offenders, meaning they have histories of victimization that influences deviant or criminal behavior and at times they are victimized as they engage in offending. For example, women who engage in sex work can be victimized while they are committing a criminalized act such as prostitution. As noted by Daly

(Daly 1998:149), “the boundaries between victim and offender are often blurred in describing the pathways of girls to the street and to the penal system…there is a connection between women’s abuse by their families and running away to the streets.”

The nature of girls’ relationships with parents and family dynamics during childhood development can also shape their pathways to delinquency. Vera Lopez’s (2017) study of justice- involved girls’ relationships with parents found that parental substance use put strain on the relationships between girls and their parents. Parental substance abuse resulted in some parents neglecting or unintentionally putting their children in harmful situations. Furthermore, the girls in Lopez’s study often took on “adultified roles” that exposed them to adult issues such as domestic violence or substance use, “which forced them to grow up fast” (Lopez 2017:10). She noted that “by late childhood and early adolescence, many of these young women were already skipping school, drinking alcohol, using drugs, having sex, and hanging out with older peers”

(Lopez 2017:10–11)(Lopez 2017:10–11) . These delinquent behaviors resulted in girls being exposed to institutional figures such as police officers, social workers, and school officials, some of which resulted in extreme consequences, i.e. their removal from the parents’ care and placement in the foster system (Lopez 2017).

Other qualitative studies have also found that an unstable home life can shape girls’ pathways to the criminal justice system, such as Flores (2016) research on “wraparound incarceration” that was discussed in a previous section. The girls in his study experienced

38 various forms of abuse prior to their detainment, and even after release from the detention facility, struggled with increased surveillance. He argued that there were unintended consequences that made it difficult for girls to completely exit the justice system once they entered it due to “the probation department’s attempt to provide wraparound services” (Flores

2016:130). As a result of these various studies and findings, feminist scholars have advocated for gender responsive interventions, as there are “gendered differences in female pathways to crime and incarceration, their offense patterns, and their behavior and needs while incarcerated…”(Bloom 2003: xviii). Gender pathways perspective not only looks at adult women’s experiences, but also considers the experiences of girls and their entry into the juvenile justice system.

Girls and juvenile justice

A consistent finding throughout scholarly work is that girls in the juvenile justice system receive harsher punishments and longer detainments than boys, often based on the ideology of girls needing more “protection” (Artz 1998; Chesney-Lind 1999; Chesney-Lind and Shelden

2014; Simkins et al. 2004). The notion of “protecting” youth, especially girls, is an ideology that is at the core of the juvenile justice system from the time of its founding in the mid- to late- nineteenth century during the child saving movement in the U.S. (see Platt 2009). Between 1992 and 2003, there was a decrease in juvenile crime, but an increase in girls’ arrests and detainment

(Brown et al. 2013). Moreover, “between 1989 and 1998, girls’ detentions increased by 56% compared to a 20% increase seen in boys’ detentions” (Brown et al. 2013:23). This has been attributed to changes in the policing of girls’ behaviors that used to be ignored or viewed as mere status offenses (i.e. running away or “incorrigible”). Now, such behaviors are perceived as

39 criminal offenses, such as domestic violence or assault (Brown et al. 2013). A study conducted by Acoca (1999:7–8)(Acoca 1999:7–8) found that “a close reading of the case files of girls charged with assault revealed that most of these charges were the result of nonserious, mutual combat, situations with parents.” Scholars have noted that often many of the girls charged with assault were victims of abuse for most of their lives and were fighting back (Brown et al. 2013).

The intersectionality of race, class, and gender in girls’ experiences in the juvenile justice system has brought attention to the role of victimization in female delinquency. Feminist perspectives have shown that girls’ survival strategies of fighting back and running away are being criminalized (Chesney-Lind 1999). A 2012 report on the disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi showed that girls were arrested less frequently than boys for every offense other than running away (Umemoto et al. 2012). Girls in Hawaiʻi comprised almost 60 percent of youth arrested for running away (Umemoto et al. 2012). The detention of girls for status offenses such as running away is indicative of the role of patriarchal notions of controlling girls sexuality that is evident in juvenile justice.

Gender and locating the self

The school governance perspective of crime control and surveillance that Hawaiʻi schools have embraced maintains racialized and gendered inequalities in school punishment. It also demonstrates the intersection of racialization, class, gender, and colonialism in what bodies are controlled. As the racialized hierarchy in Hawaiʻi places Native Hawaiians and Pacific

Islanders on the lower order (Okamura 2008), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander girls experienced surveillance, reprimand, and labeling at school and in their communities. The role of the ‘bad girl’ or ‘criminal’ label is significant for teens, as it not only becomes internalized and

40 part of their self-concept (secondary deviance), but it also acts as a greater mechanism of state and social control through the perpetuation of hegemonic notions such as ‘good’ citizens versus

‘bad’ citizens, or ʻdesirable’ versus ‘undesirable’ individuals. People, including delinquent or incarcerated teens, are socialized into understanding and internalizing such labeling practices, which impact certain groups more than others, most notably girls compared to boys (Hall et al.

2013).

Feminist scholars have noted that women often experience feelings of loss and confusion, and struggle to find themselves while living in a heteronormative, patriarchal, and white privileged society (Rich 1986). These feelings of needing to find or ʻlocate’ themselves is more than just finding a physically safe space. It also refers to how they want to understand their positionality, and how that impacts their lives, their stories, their visibility, and their place in the world, or a time or moment in their life. When discussing location and its importance for women, many feminist theorists begin by looking at the body (Butler 2015; Ferguson 2016; Rich 1986).

In her discussion of the politics of location, Rich (1986) outlined her attempt at trying to locate herself. She noted that her body “…from the outset…had more than one identity” (Rich

1986:215). Rich (1986) discussed the relevance of the concept of master status in her experience of how she was defined, first by her race (white), then secondly, by her gender (woman).

Similarly, delinquent and detained girls’ bodies have more than one identity. They are racialized, gendered, and then criminalized. Their gender often increases the level of criminalization, policing, and punishment; in other words, they face such processes at more frequent and intense levels, or for longer periods than boys (Chesney-Lind 1999). Girls in this study described being punished at school for dress code violations, for example. Jane described getting detention for “inappropriate attire” because she changed into a tank top for marching

41 band practice. She described the surveillance of girls’ bodies in high school as “guarded” or in need of protection simply because they were girls. Jane did not feel that boys experienced the same level of scrutiny for how they dressed at school. The differences in how girls were treated compared to boys, highlights the struggle girls have with insitutional control over their bodies.

The various identities and labels that come to define delinquent and detained girls may complicate their ability to ‘locate’ themselves within their own bodies (Rich 1986). The process may be complicated through the different narratives that they have been socialized into understanding of what it means to be a ‘good girl.’ These socially constructed narratives become internalized for girls. If they were to deviate from such narratives, they are not only viewed by others as ‘bad’ or ‘immoral,’ but the girls themselves will internalize these narratives and incoporate them in a self-concept of a ‘bad girl.’ It also can result in girls imposing judgement on others as they build their own conception of what it means to be a ‘good girl’ who makes ‘good choices.’

Access to ‘good choices’ involves location and privilege. Privilege refers to socioeconomic status, racialization, and age, which are factors that can determine access to resources and opportunities. Telling girls to make “good choices” without providing them the tools, skill sets, and resources to change their behaviors (if they even need to be changed) may be setting girls up to fail. Thus, the desire to be a ‘good girl’ who makes ‘good choices’ is difficult for girls of different statuses and serves to increase feelings of alienation and disengagement in school. When girls discuss good choices it demonstrates the internalized narrative that youth have to be one or the other, ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ This can prove challenging and frustrating for girls who want to please others and themselves by ‘making good choices’ but may not have the access to ‘good choices.’

Youth who are struggling with school disengagement experience a level of ambiguity around locating their identity at school and question whether they feel safe in the spaces they occupy on campus. Being pushed out of school through either arrest, suspension, or feeling uncomfortable on campus can displace young people, not simply physically but also socially and mentally. It removes them from spaces that may have once felt safe or they felt included in, until they were told they did not belong, thus displacing their safety and putting their comfortability and sense of identity into question.

Teens in this study described instance of challenging adults at school. The vulnerability of a young person challenging an adult in a position of power, such as a teacher, demonstrates their resiliency and agency. However, the reactions from their peers demonstrate how these actions can alienate them in these spaces, thus making some youth feel uncomfortable or unsafe to return to school. For those youth who continued to attend school after experiencing exclusionary incidents, Alexis, for example, also speaks to their resiliency in their ability to continue occupying places they are consistently alienated from and reminded they do not belong.

Criminal justice and colonialism

There is a connection between the inequalities embedded within the criminal justice system and colonialism as processes of racialized control and punishment. The United States criminal justice system functions through a rhetoric of ‘tough on crime’ and practices of harsh punishment. Criminalizing stereotypical groups who are deemed ‘undesirable’ as a method to maintain societal power and control may explain why there is a disproportionate minority representation in the criminal justice system (Alexander 2010). Structural inequalities such as patriarchy, racism, and class are embedded into the structure and processes of criminal justice.

Racialized hierarchies and punishment

Racial formations and racialization involve conceptions of power and social control (Omi and Winant 2014). ‘Race’ is a social construction designed to maintain social hierarchies and stratification (Bonilla-Silva 2003). Miles (1993) argues that “race” is an idea, not a concept. By elevating “race” to a concept presumes that it exists. Instead, Miles (1993) argues that the correct concept is racism. Racism functions as an ideology that conceals the idea of ‘race’ and maintains certain groups of people in positions of power (Bonilla-Silva 2003; Miles 1993). The power that lies in racial formations is through reifying the idea of “race” as a natural category of stratification. Omi and Winant (2014:13) refer to racialization as, “the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group.” The process of classifying groups of people has been fundamental to constructing racialized social structures and institutions, thus justifying imperial projects that exploited and expropriated lands and indigenous people.

Racialized crime theories suggest that there are multiple processes and institutions of racialized social control that have changed throughout history, from slavery to chain gangs to mass incarceration (see Irwin et al. 2012; Wacquant 2001). Scholars have argued that mass incarceration is a contemporary institution of racialized control (Alexander 2010; Cole 1999;

Wacquant 2001). The high rates of policing, incarceration, and criminalization of people of color, particularly African Americans, point to the use of punishment as a larger project of racialized social control in the United States (Alexander 2010; Cole 1999; Wacquant 2001).

The racialized stigma of criminality that we see in contemporary society makes collective action against an oppressive system such as mass incarceration difficult. It also makes it difficult

44 for the communities most affected by mass incarceration to mobilize around the issue, and for some to identify the racist component of this form of social control. In addition, mass incarceration “depends more on racial indifference (defined as lack of compassion and caring about race and racial group) than racial hostility,” whereas during periods of de jure segregation such as Jim Crow, racial hostility and racial stigma contained the “seeds of revolt” (Alexander

2010:197). Scholars have noted that we are in a particular historic moment when race has

“become symbolically equated with dangerousness and the need for criminal justice control and containment” (Irwin et al. 2012:49–50). Furthermore, the history of racial disparity and inequality in the American criminal justice system points to the racialized systems of control that were established during periods of American colonization.

Scholars have recognized the intersection of racialization with punishment, yet few place racial disparities in criminal justice through a colonial theoretical lens (Agozino 2003; Chowdhry and Beeman 2007; Hawkins 2011). As noted by Chowdhry and Beeman (2007:18), “…modern racism has its origins in the colonial encounter.” This gap in the research reveals not only the complicity of colonialism, but also the continuation of an imperialist motivation that some scholars argue is limiting criminological theory overall (Agozino 2003).

Colonization of the Hawaiian Islands exists in the collective memories and historical trauma of the Native Hawaiian community (Irwin and Umemoto 2016). The historical trauma of colonialism has left communities throughout Hawaiʻi with an accumulation of harms and cultural wounding (Cook et al. 2003) including loss of land, poverty, and the criminalization of cultural practices and communities. There is an impact of collective memories and historical trauma in constructing social and group identities, especially by indigenous communities that experienced the worst of colonial domination (Cook et al. 2003; Salzman 2001). The racialization and

45 criminalization of Native Hawaiians functioned as a racialized method of control during the illegal occupation and annexation of Hawaiʻi by the United States. These methods of domination and control persist and are evident through the inequalities in contemporary Hawaiʻi.

The colonization of Hawaiʻi constructed racialized hierarchies that placed Native

Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The “racialized social systems” and processes of racialization in Hawaiʻi have functioned as an “organizing principle of social relations” (Bonilla-Silva 197: 475). Structural racism is a process that embeds and maintains racialized hierarchies into social relationships and institutions in order to protect power relations, particularly the ability to be within the proximity to power that is often associated with

‘whiteness.’ Okamura (2008) noted the role of education and economics as part of the colonial process to maintain a racialized hierarchy that have placed Native Hawaiians and Pacific

Islanders in oppressive conditions.

Racialized structures that historically prevented people of color from accessing education, employment, and housing are evident in the negative stereotyping of neighborhoods and ethnic groups in Hawaiʻi (Fujikane 2008; Okamura 2008). Structural racism limits resources and access to opportunities available to youth and community stakeholders that want to provide teens support, often in subtle ways. By embedding racialized patterns within policies and practices of political, economic, and socio-cultural structures” (The Aspen Institute on

Community Change 2005:9), racialized disparities between different racialized groups of people are reproduced (Bonilla-Silva 2003; Desmond 2017; Miles 1993; Okamura 2008). “These dynamics work to maintain the existing racial hierarchy even as they adapt with the times to accomodate new racial and ethnic groups” (The Aspen Institute on Community Change 2005:9).

This was evident in the racialized stereotypes of newer immigrant groups to Hawaiʻi, especially, racist and criminalized stereotypes towards Micronesians and Filipinos (Okamura 2008).

Colonial criminology

Racialized structures of inequality are linked to legacies of colonization and imperialism.

To conceal imperial theft, exploitation, and expropriation, colonialism contributed to the construction of social stratification and institutionalized racism through ideologies and processes of racialization, class, gender, and nationalism. As a result, colonial legacies have manifested into current structures of inequality and stratification that range from economics, housing, and criminal justice. Colonial criminology is a theoretical perspective that examines “the role that colonialism has played in the social construction of race as well as a racialized global hierarchy and a system of punishment that criminalizes difference” (Chowdhry and Beeman 2007:13; see

Cuneen and Tauri 2016).

Criminal justice is closely tied to colonialism through various mechanisms that occur simultaneously to maintain power structures established during imperialism and colonial rule.

Colonialism occurs through a foreign power entering and extending power over a territory and its indigenous people by settling or establishing a colony on stolen land. Imperialism is the foreign power ruling over the territory through colonization to assist in implementing a country’s power through force, culture, and settlement. Historically, colonizers exerted and maintained power through violence, ideologies of difference, and criminalization of indigenous populations

(Keahiolalo-Karasuda 2010; Merry 2000). Constructing ideologies of difference assisted colonizers in the process of settling or establishing a colony that also influenced notions of who was criminal and who was not. These ideologies informed policing practices that targeted certain

47 populations based on their racialized identification. As noted by Edward Said (1993:9), “neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition. Both are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological formations that include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination.” Legitimization of domination appears through ideologies of power, racism, patriarchy, classism, and criminality. These ideologies are social constructions that dictate social relationships and control. The racialization and criminalization of Native Hawaiians functioned as a racialized method of control during the illegal occupation of Hawai‘i by the United States in 1893. Such methods of domination and control continue to persist and are evident through the inequalities that exist in present day

Hawai‘i.

Colonialism and punishment in the colonization of Hawai‘i

There are similarities in the drastic increase of incarceration and unequal punishment of people of color in Hawai‘i that parallels the current mass incarceration on the continental United

States. The processes of assimilation, law, and military force used in Hawaiian colonization produced racial and economic disadvantages that are reflected in the inequalities Native

Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders face socially, politically, and criminally (Okamura 2008). As noted by colonial scholars, the criminalization of indigenous people through law, politics, and legislative actions was a significant tool used in the colonizing process (Chesney-Lind and

Bilsky 2011; Keahiolalo-Karasuda 2010; Merry 2000). It was a mechanism used in “divide and conquer” methods of colonization (Fanon 1963). One could argue that the ‘get-tough’ ideologies and political rhetoric messages that were implemented in the United States were also being used to support American imperialistic projects in other parts of the world, with profound effects on

48 indigenous people. Similar divide and conquer methods and ideologies were also used to gain support for the War on Crime and the War on Drugs. The racially disproportionate number of

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders incarcerated for non-violent drug offences in Hawai‘i is also reflective of similar racial disparities of the incarceration of African Americans for nonviolent drug charges on the continental U.S (Alexander 2010; Office of Hawaiian Affairs 2010).

For example, studies have shown a disproportionate minority contact and overrepresentation of

Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Filipino youth in the juvenile justice system (Umemoto et al.

2012). Native Hawaiian youth are “overrepresented at every decision point of the juvenile justice system” (Chesney-Lind and Shelden 2014:214). As noted by Chesney-Lind and Bilsky

(Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011:133):

The racial disparity is particularly notable for Native Hawaiian girls, who account for 52% of those detained and are being held for noncriminal status offense of running away from home. This offense accounts for roughly a third of all juvenile arrests in Hawaiʻi, the highest proportion in the United States and roughly 10 times higher than comparable national figures.

This suggests that the juvenile justice system, especially incarceration, is a significant force in the lives of Native Hawaiian girls. As Native Hawaiian youth are the largest number of overrepresented youths in the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi, a better understanding is needed of what is leading to this disproportionate contact they are having with the juvenile justice system.

Youth institutions of control assist in maintaining structural inequalities through the discipline and punishment of youth and their “problematic” behaviors. The racialized hierarchies and socioeconomic stratification that was developed through colonization and imperialism is embedded in the processes of youth insitutional control and conceptions of who is viewed as deviant, criminal, and what behaviors are seen as troublesome. Hawaiʻi’s recent history of

49 colonization provided a site to closely examine the intersection of historical trauma, racialized hierarchies, socioeconomic stratification, and youth punishment. Conducting a study focusing on the connection between public schools and jails in Hawaiʻi brings histories of colonization into the context of examining contemporary systems of punishment.

Advancing the scholarship

This present study demonstrates how public schools prepare Native Hawaiian and Pacific

Islander youth to enter the institutional and programmatic maze. Not only are public schools one of the institutions in the maze, public schools are one the many entry points into the maze.

Together, these processes of punishment and control that construct the institutional maze increase the difficulty for youth to fully escape institutional control as well as completely exiting the maze upon completion of requirements or transitioning into adulthood. This research contributes to recognizing the complexity of the relationship between schools and the juvenile justice system as youth control mechanisms that perpetuate social stratified systems and hierarchies. These systems of stratification continue colonial projects that attempt to erase, prevent, and silence youth agency and resistance to oppression through the criminalization of youth behaviors that challenge systems of power.

In the following chapters I explore the conditions, context, and various experiences of youth navigating the maze. Chapter 2, “Methodology” explains the process of data collection and analysis, as well as accounting for the data collected. In Chapter 3, I present the range of hardships youth participants experienced, based on my interviews with them and their writing produced in creative writing workshops, that influenced their encounters with institutional control. Chapter 4 details the empirical findings of the process of student engagement and

50 disengagement that made school an uncomfortable and unsafe environment that exposed some youth to the juvenile justice system. In Chapter 5, I provide a detailed articulation of the institutional maze by providing a description of visible entry points, likely pathways, and the maze-like difficulty for teens to depart the juvenile justice system. I conclude with Chapter 6 summarizing this projects contribution to the literature and the implications of this study for future policies and research.

In summary, through an ethnography of youth punishment and interventions in Hawaiʻi, this research provides an analysis of how racialization, gender, place, and criminalization intersect in the lives of youth navigating institutional control. By utilizing both a feminist and colonial criminology perspective, and by focusing on the experiences of girls, this study contributes to the debates about the fundamental efficacy of youth punishment and interventions both in schools and the juvenile justice system. While studies of youth punishment and the connection between schools and jails are informative and provide theoretical grounding, there are limited ethnographic accounts that capture the narratives of youth navigating these institutions. Qualitative studies that examine the school-to-prison pipeline (Kupchik 2010) or gendered pathways to delinquency and crime (Brown et al. 2013) have provided linear arguments regarding the experiences of youth punishment in schools and the juvenile justice system. A few scholars have discussed circular arguments of wraparound services functioning more as “wraparound incarceration” that prove to be challenging for teens to exit (Flores 2016).

Yet there continues to be a gap in the literature of research examining the complexity of the connection between schools and juvenile justice institutions, especially focusing on the experiences of youth attempting to navigate the confusing maze of institutional control. This

51 study uses ethnographic data collected from a high school, a juvenile justice program, and community stakeholders in Hawaiʻi to address this gap in the literature.

CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODS

This chapter provides an overview of the study’s research setting and methodology. I begin by describing the background of what led to the selection of three research locations within the state of Hawaiʻi, specifically on the island of Oʻahu as sites to study youth punishment. In the section “Study Design: Qualitative Research,” I discuss the qualitative research methods of feminist ethnography and grounded theory used in designing this study. The following section,

“Settings” describes the three sites in which I conducted field research that provided data for the study. “Data Collection” is the section in which I describe the methods and tools applied to collect the data. The “Data Analysis” section describes important analytical tools used to analyze the qualitative data collected. The final section “Study Limitations” provides a discussion of the constraints of data collection and field research for this study and where future research might be directed.

Background

I moved to Hawaiʻi in 2011 to begin my doctoral program at the University of Hawaiʻi,

Mānoa (UHM). Prior to moving to Hawaiʻi, from January 2006 – September 2007, I taught incarcerated boys aged 15-19 as a volunteer instructor at Rikers Island Correctional Facility in

New York City. At Rikers Island, I was able to gain a first-hand perspective of juvenile justice in the United States. Teaching within a correctional institution provided me with tacit knowledge that enhanced my understanding of multiple inequalities at work within American institutions.

After moving to Hawaiʻi, I continued teaching justice-involved teens through creative literacy

53 workshops with a program called Youth Creative Writing (YCW)2. YCW provided workshops for incarcerated boys and girls at the Youth Detainment Center (YDC), and a non-secure detention center, Home of Moderation (HM) on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. I was also invited by a sociology faculty member to join her as she observed a group-counseling program at a local high school (Seaside High) for students who were struggling with school engagement and delinquency. My experience working with high school students and justice-involved teens in

Hawaiʻi as well as my previous work in New York helped me to develop a grounded understanding of delinquency and methods of punishment for juveniles both in schools and the juvenile justice system which I was able to bring to my research.

This study comprises an ethnography using participant observation and in-depth interviews collected at three different research settings, 1) a high school; 2) a community service program for youth on probation; and 3) a creative writing and art program for justice-involved teens in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. This research employs qualitative methods to explore teens’ construction of meanings about their experiences with different institutions of control (e.g. schools and the juvenile justice system), and the different ways that social control impacts them when framed in a youth justice context. In the next section, I discuss the qualitative approach used in designing this study.

The Study Design: Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a common method of inquiry used to uncover interpretive processes at work in everyday contexts, and it is especially adept at understanding “how people

2 The names of all settings, programs, and participants in my study have been changed. I use pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of all settings, programs, and the identity of the participants and communities involved in the study.

54 and groups construct meaning” (Patton 2015:5). Qualitative inquiry relies on researchers directly interacting with research participants to access sensitive information3 in order to understand the construction of social meaning and their experiences with the social processes of meaning making. As noted by Blumer (1986:4–5), meaning making refers to the process in which “the meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the ways in which other persons act toward the person with regard to the thing. Their actions operate to define the thing for the person.” This interaction can be through direct participation in a process or practice in the setting or through open-ended interviews with participants. Qualitative analysis results in a “thick” description of the social processes that are produced in differentiated meaningful action and was, therefore, the method of choice for this study.

Conducting research with marginalized and justice-involved youth requires sensitivity in order to gain entrée and develop trust with participants, and navigate institutional settings and communities. For example, youth in this study were vulnerable and unlikely to trust adults because they were minors under the age of 18 and involved in youth institutions of control such as the education and juvenile justice systems. Also, many study participants had previously been let down or had their safety compromised by adults they had trusted. Accessing youth from such backgrounds, and obtaining a rich understanding of their experiences, can be difficult without first developing a level of trust and rapport. Participant observation enables researchers to study people in their natural setting by spending time with them and participating in a recognized role

(Hesse-Biber 2017). It also provides researchers with a less threatening mechanism than formal interviews for gaining access and establishing trust with participants (Adler and Adler 1994).

3 I define sensitive information as personal information that is protected and only disclosed with the permission of the individual to which it pertains. If revealed in an unwarranted manner, the information can potentially cause a person to experience shame, embarrassment, discrimination, or harassment.

However, in-depth interviewing gives researchers an opportunity to access voices, perspectives, and “hidden knowledge” of marginalized groups that might not be available through participant- observation alone (Hesse-Biber 2017). Therefore, in this study, I used both participant- observation and qualitative interviews to conduct a feminist ethnography. I followed approved

IRB protocols and conducted this study in accordance to IRB standards for research involving human subjects.

As discussed in the literature review, this study utilizes among other theoretical frameworks, a feminist criminological framework to understand the gender disparities among youth in institutional control. A feminist methodological framework is a particular version of qualitative analysis that introduces additional dimensions to studies involving marginalized and vulnerable groups. Employing feminist methodology to study youth in schools and juvenile justice settings allows researchers to conduct their studies with 1) principles of care; 2) reflexivity of their role as individuals and researchers in comparison to their participants; and 3) a critical eye for identifying and analyzing issues of gender, power, and “racialized patriarchy” that impact the lives of the teens they are studying (Hill-Collins 1990).

As this inquiry is working within an inductive research method of ethnography and grounded theory, I did not have research questions at the beginning of the study, but rather my goal was to explore youth punishment in public schools and the juvenile justice system in

Hawaiʻi. Charmaz’s (2014) grounded theory uses an inductive approach, building theory from the systematically gathered and analyzed qualitative data. Inductive research is a tradition that allows questions to emerge during the research process. The following research goals emerged during the course of this study:

1) Explore different punitive practices in high school and the effects they may have on

high school students’ exposure to and entry into the juvenile justice system.

2) Examine whether schools and the criminal justice system are connected. Specifically

focusing on how these institutions are linked, i.e. how they work together, sharing

information, and achieving similar goals?

3) Examine the core social processes stated in Goal 2, and the consequences for youth

navigating institutional control and/or between schools and the juvenile justice

system.

4) Discover whether there are racial and gendered aspects to the connection of

educational and juvenile justice systems as institutions of control.

I used qualitative research methods, specifically feminist ethnography and grounded theory, to conduct participant observations, in-depth interviews, and examined documents collected at a public high school, a community service program for youth on probation, and a creative writing and arts program in a juvenile detention facility in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. From an analysis of this data,

I developed a theory based on the findings that emerged from the research.

Feminist Ethnography

Settings of social control, whether they are schools or juvenile justice programs, are not gender-neutral contexts, but reflect the wider dynamics of power, privilege, and patriarchy, which are reproduced in technologies and practices of social control. For these reasons, it is important to adopt a methodological stance that recognizes the power differentials that shape youth’s lives in such settings. Feminist ethnography focuses on a reflexive understanding of the dynamics of gendered power structures within the daily lives of girls and women (Pillow and

Mayo 2012; Stacey 1988). There is not one unified definition of feminist ethnography (Schrock

2018). Moreover, the challenges to the method’s viability have alerted ethnographers to be sensitive to power differentials and the potential threat the ethnographer poses in representing his or her subjects (Stacey 1988), as well as the danger of universalizing women’s and girls’ experiences (Abu-Lughod 1990), and by extension, that of men and boys. Feminist approaches provided the researcher in this study with a space and analytical tool to focus on girls’ experiences within patriarchal systems, such as the juvenile justice system.

In feminist studies, not only is the focus on girls’ experiences crucial, but boys’ experiences are also important, especially in analyzing gender performances evident in hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is developed in relation to the practice of dominating women and through the hierarchy of masculinities among men across socializing agents such as schools, families, neighborhoods, and peers (Connell 2005; Connell and

Messerschmidt 2005). Hegemonic masculinity is characterized by competition, limited emotional expression (except for anger, homophobia, misogyny), and intolerance toward men with feminine qualities (Kupers 2005). The hierarchical construction of idealized masculinity evident in hegemonic masculinity is used to reinforce social power relations and methods of control. Furthermore, examining the experiences of both boys and girls in institutions of control offers a comparative perspective of the way gender functions in the punishment and control of young people.

Feminist ethnography begins from a place of questioning “the power, authority, and subjectivity of the researcher as it questions the purposes of the research” (Pillow and Mayo

2012:190). Reflexivity is a crucial aspect to feminist research by paying attention to identity in relation to power (Pillow and Mayo 2012). It is an important part of the research process that

58 requires the researcher to consistently question their positionality, their privilege, their intentions, and the part they play as a researcher (Fader 2013; Flores 2016; Rios 2017). As a White educated woman from the continental United States who was in her 30s, I was aware of the significant differences between the study participants and myself. As an outsider conducting research in a place with a recent history of colonization, I was consistently reflexive about the traumatic experiences indigenous communities have had with outside researchers (Tuhiwai-Smith 2012). I was sensitive to my presence as an outsider and demonstrated compassion and care towards my participants and their narratives by attempting to learn their communities’ histories, as well as providing transparency, consistency, and active-listening as a nonjudgmental adult. I was also aware of the role research plays in constructing knowledge, and the power that knowledge has in delegitimizing indigenous communities in ways that support violence towards them and further marginalization (Tuhiwai-Smith 2012).

Research is a construction of knowledge that scholars have noted may further reify colonial power structures (Tuhiwai-Smith 2012). The project of colonialism in Hawaiʻi involved exploitation of Native Hawaiian communities that resulted in White settler colonialism. Scholars have noted the erasure of indigeneity that resulted from the structures imposed by White settler colonialism aiming “towards its self-supersession” (Veracini 2011:3). As noted by Wolfe

(2006:388), the settler “invasion is a structure not an event.” The structure consistently chases an

“end point” (Veracini 2011). The establishment of westernized institutions and structures such as education and the criminal justice system were processes used to socially marginalize Native

Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. These processes and policies have led to the stigmatization and criminalization of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders as evidenced by the disproportionate

59 number of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders incarcerated in Hawaiʻi (Office of Hawaiian

Affairs 2012).

In an attempt to maintain reflexivity in this study, I did not engage in “shadow” techniques of ethnography that involve following an individual in “their daily lives” (Rios

2017:168). As this study works with youth who have engaged in some level of delinquency and/or deviance, observing their daily lives could have resulted in obtaining “guilty knowledge”

(Adler and Adler 1998) that could have turned into punitive consequences for participants (Irwin and Umemoto 2016), or reified labels of deviance or criminality. Instead of focusing on the deviant or illegal behavior of the subjects, I highlighted the structural and social processes of youth experiences in navigating institutions of control. I followed Irwin and Umemoto’s (2016:

26) approach when they worked with Seaside students, the role they called the “caring adult stance.”

The caring adult in their work consisted of being “nonjudgmental, supportive, and caring adults who listened to teens as they expressed their views.” The caring adult role was appropriate for Irwin and Umemoto’s (2016) study, as they found youth participants appreciated having a nonjudgmental supportive adult in their lives, and found that through developing trusting relationships with teens during the lunch groups, they were able to learn more about the students’ lives that “went beyond their participation in crime and deviance, and therefore permitted us to see them in less narrow terms than in many criminological studies” (Irwin and Umemoto 2016:

27). I was able to get to know many of the teens and adults in this study through my consistency in participating in and observing programs that study participants were involved in, either as program participants, facilitators, or staff. This provided me an opportunity to learn about their lives and experiences within these institutions. Similar to what Irwin and Umemoto (2016) found

60 in their study, youth in my study appeared appreciative of the supportive role of nonjudgmental adults.

Grounded Theory

As opposed to deductive theory, which starts out with a theoretical position and seeks to establish whether this can be affirmed by the data, grounded theory is an inductive method of inquiry based on the premise that theory emerges from data. For this study, I chose a constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory approach, which delves into the perspectives of each participant, while also illuminating patterns across individuals’ experiences of institutional control. Critics of ontological and epistemological forms of grounded theory that have more realist assumptions (Glaser 1992; Strauss and Corbin 1990) advocate for the “utility of a constructivist ontology supported by an interpretivist epistemology” (Weed 2017:151). Weed

(2016:151) argues that the constructivist approach of Charmaz’s grounded theory “focuses on the meanings that can be constructed from interpretations of the data.” A constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory approach is conducive to the current study, which delves into the perspectives of each participant, while also illuminating patterns across individuals’ experiences of institutional control.

Grounded theory provides a systematic process of collecting data from the onset of the research that involves an iterative approach of continuously revisiting the data through “constant comparison methods” (Charmaz 2014:132). As noted by Corbin and Strauss (1990:5), “Data collection and analysis are interrelated processes…the analysis begins as soon as the first bit of data is collected.” The constant comparison approach enables the researcher to “make comparisons at each level of analytic work” (Charmaz 2014:132), which includes data collection.

The process of going back and forth between the data results in constructing connections and noticing patterns in the data. The guidelines of grounded theory provide structure, but also a level of flexibility to inspire innovation in data collection (Charmaz 2008). Constant comparison enables the researcher to refine ideas and can influence changes in data collection as the study progresses (Dey 2004). Thus, themes will emerge as researchers move between data collection and analysis (Charmaz 2014).

Consistent with constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2014), I use theoretical sampling, which is defined as, “seeking and collecting pertinent data to elaborate and refine categories in your emerging theory” (Charmaz 2014: 192). Theoretical sampling of research sites and data collection allows the researcher to refine categories and ideas (Charmaz 2014).

Charmaz (2014:192) notes, “theoretical sampling brings explicit systematic checks and refinements to your analysis. You conduct theoretical sampling by sampling to develop the properties of your categories until no new properties emerge.” Theoretical sampling differs from initial sampling in that initial sampling is a starting point, whereas theoretical sampling is an analytical process that refines ideas that guide your data collection.

Grounded theory ethnography differs from other forms of ethnography in that it focuses on the process, rather than only describing the setting (Charmaz 2014). In giving the phenomenon or process priority in data collection, participant observation provides researchers the ability to establish and maintain relationships with the research subjects in the setting

(Lofland et al. 2006). By not only observing the activities but also participating in them, a researcher can build rapport with participants and gain a better understanding of behaviors and events in the research setting and among participants. As a researcher, my interactions with youth at Seaside High School and in the YCW program included my role as a facilitator and

62 involved conducting “focused observations” (Adler and Adler 1994). Focused observations were observations that were guided and supported by interviews with participants.

In-depth interviews are part of grounded theory methods and allow further exploration of any similarities of experience across participants, as well as for the identification of common themes and patterns to emerge during data collection and analysis (Charmaz 2014; Lofland et al.

2006). Conducting in-depth interviews permitted me to explore the viewpoints of the participants and the meanings and motivations that participants viewed as important (Lofland et al. 2006).

This process involved asking the participants to “describe and reflect upon his or her experiences in ways that seldom occur in everyday life” (Charmaz 2014:58).The structure of an in-depth interview cultivated a participant’s rendering of their experience during the interview.

Settings

This study examined youth experiences with institutional interventions at three sites: 1)

The Lunch Bunch groups at Seaside High School, 2) the Community Service program and the

Youth Creative Writing program (YCW) at Home of Moderation (HM), and 3) the YCW program at Youth Detention Center (YDC). These sites were selected because of my familiarity with the programs and the community stakeholders involved in running or managing the research sites. This study fits the opportunistic model of qualitative research, which allows researchers to use familiar circumstances, social situations, or events as research opportunities or sites (Reimer

1977).

The research was conducted from January 2012 until October 2017. During the duration of this study, I facilitated and managed the YCW writing workshops at various juvenile detention facilities on Oʻahu and became familiar with a community service program for youth on

63 probation at one of the YCW workshop locations, HM. During that same time period, I assisted a sociology faculty member in her study of a group counseling program called the “Lunch Bunch” at Seaside High School on Oʻahu. I became an active member (Adler and Adler 1987) of the

Lunch Bunch, HM community service program, and the YCW program. The following subsections explain each of the three research settings in turn.

Lunch Bunch Groups

The first research setting was the Lunch Bunch counseling groups held at Seaside High

School located in Northward, a rural area on the island of Oʻahu. More than half of the student population at Seaside4 were Native Hawaiian; about 10% were Filipino and Samoan, and the remaining student population identified as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and White (Hawaiʻi State

Department of Education 2017). In 2016-2017, roughly half of the students at Seaside High

School qualified for free or reduced-cost lunch (Hawaiʻi State Department of Education 2017).

The suspension rate at Seaside High School for 2016-2017 was 8% compared to the 2011-2012

Hawaiʻi state suspension rate of 5% (Terrell 2015), and the 6.4% national suspension rate for

2011-2012 (National Center for Education Statistics 2017).

At Seaside High School, there were two Lunch Bunch groups that met once a week during lunch, one for boys and one for girls. I sat-in on the girls’ group along with the sociology faculty member, and the Seaside High School counselors. School counselors identified students who had experienced challenges ranging from school engagement to violence, to mental health diagnoses. The counselors invited these students to attend the groups. The goals of the Lunch

Bunch group were to create safe, non-judgmental spaces for students to discuss and share their

4 Exact numbers are not used to protect the anonymity of the high school, community, and participants.

64 thoughts and opinions about a range of topics. Part of creating a safe space involved non-punitive practices, such as not enforcing attendance or participation in activities, and informing students that their participation in the group and group activities was voluntary and not a requirement.

The topics discussed in the groups were selected by students at the beginning of each semester.

Examples of topics covered included stress, anxiety, bullying, friendships, and romantic relationships. The group activities included art activities, such as making clay “stress beads.”

Writing activities involved selecting three pieces of paper that had an emotion written on each piece, and using the emotions to write a short story or paragraph. In addition to the weekly lunch groups, I attended three field trips and activities that were planned for the group by the sociology faculty member and the Seaside High School counselors. These field trips included excursions to the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa campus, and participating in a 5K beach run/walk.

The YCW Pprogram

The second research setting was the YCW program, a creative writing and arts program for justice-involved youth. The program itself emerged after an evaluation was conducted of

Hawaiʻi’s youth detention facilities. One of the findings from the evaluation was that more programs were needed to improve the conditions of confinement for detained youth (Family

Court 2012). Brian Bilsky, a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, worked on the evaluation as a research assistant and created the YCW program with permission and support from Hawaiʻi’s Family Court. The program initially began at YDC and was later expanded to two other Family Court facilities, including HM.

The YCW workshops were one-hour creative writing, art, or drumming workshops that would meet one to three times a week depending upon volunteer schedules and the facility’s

65 ability to accommodate volunteer workshops. The goal of the YCW program was to empower youth in the juvenile justice system by instilling in them notions of self-efficacy that would assist them in navigating the juvenile justice system. The YCW workshops aimed to address problems justice-involved teens faced, and also improve the conditions of confinement for youth in detention facilities through a creative outlet and safe space within a confined environment.

The YCW program was offered in both the YDC facility and the HM facility. At YDC, the groups were gender-specific and based on the module youth were assigned to. There were three modules at YDC, one girl’s module, and two boy’s modules. At HM, the groups were co- ed and not gender-specific. The size and gender composition of each workshop were dependent upon the number of youths who were currently detained or on probation, the number of youths who voluntarily participated in the YCW workshop, as well as security protocols of the facility.

The YCW program at YDC had two to six youths in a workshop. The YDC facility’s safety protocol did not allow more than six youths in attendance at workshops, as they required one facility staff member present for every six youths. YDC facilitators like myself were considered volunteers and not facility staff. At HM, the YCW workshops ranged from two to ten participants.

Facilitators in the YCW program were trained volunteers who were aware of the precariousness of working in a juvenile detention facility, particularly with youth struggling with various challenges as they navigated the juvenile justice system. Facilitators were conscious that part of their preparation for a workshop involved going with the flow of the class and expecting the unexpected. There were a variety of factors that could influence the level of youth engagement in the workshops held at both YDC and HM. A youth could have received some unsettling news, lost privileges in the facility, did not have family visit him or her, or had an

66 upsetting experience in court earlier that day or week. As such, facilitators were prepared to let youth use the space of the workshops to creatively express their emotions.

Facilitators understood that the topic or activity could possibly not go as planned in order to give youth a safe and creative space. Moreover, they were aware of their power and privilege as adults who could leave the facility when class was done and were conscious of not using punitive language or methods to control or correct disruptive behavior. Instead, facilitators had youth collectively construct and agree upon the rules of the workshop, with respect for each other as the number one rule. When facilitators needed to correct a behavior, they would pause the lesson and ask the youth if they felt they were being respectful, and if they wanted to continue with the workshop. This enabled the youth to feel they had a say in their participation, as well as in deciding whether or not they wanted to change their behavior. During the five years of facilitating the YCW workshops, I did not have to end a workshop early because of behavioral misconduct or youth disinterest in the class.

In providing justice-involved teens a safe space to creatively express their emotions,

YCW empowered youth by giving them an opportunity to have their voice and experiences heard. YCW achieved this by creating a social media site to publish5 the youth’s writing and art- work produced in the workshops. Only youth who volunteered to have their work published were featured on the social media site.

5 All work published on the social media site was anonymous and only used the youth’s initials and age to protect their identity as they were justice-involved minors. YCW received approval from Family Court to publish their work anonymously.

HM Community Service Program

The community service program at HM was located in an urban area of Oʻahu. The HM community service program supported youth on probation by assisting them in completing their court-mandated community service hours and earning money to pay back their court-ordered restitution. While the juvenile justice system’s jurisdiction included the entire state of Hawaiʻi, the community service program was housed at HM and was only offered to youth residing in

Oʻahu. I participated in the YCW program at HM from January 2016 until October 2017.

Similar to the students at Seaside High school, more than half of court-involved youth in

Hawaiʻi identified as Native Hawaiian and/or Pacific Islander and were low-income (Godinet and Li 2011). Native Hawaiian and Filipino youth are overrepresented at all decision points in the juvenile justice system (Godinet and Li 2011; Umemoto et al. 2012). About half of the youth in the program lived at home with their family or guardian. The others resided at HM, the non- secure detention facility. The number of youths participating in community service activities on any given day ranged from one to six teens. The HM community service mentors said they did not receive many referrals from family court. The program sometimes had 30 to 40 open cases, though not all of the youth would actually come.

The HM community service activities court-involved youth participated in included attending creative writing workshops, gardening, feeding the homeless, helping a food bank at a church, volunteering at a retirement community, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, and various agricultural projects all over the island that focused on removing invasive plant species.

In addition to assisting youth with completing their restitution and community service hours, the program at HM also focused on instilling skills and values through mentorship. The program mentors worked closely with youth to teach them values of empowerment, forgiveness, and

68 healing. I was able to observe this at the program offices and during the community service activities I attended.

The YCW workshops were incorporated into the community service program housed at

HM. The community service program mentors agreed with the YCW program goals and viewed them as a therapeutic activity for youth in their program to participate in and earn community service hours. The YCW workshops at HM were co-ed, as it was a smaller facility than the YDC.

The YCW program at HM was voluntary and did not require youth completing community service hours to participate in the workshops. However, if a youth participated in a YCW workshop, it would count towards their community service hours. If a youth declined to attend the YCW workshops at HM, the mentors would assign them another activity or task, such as working on the garden at HM or cleaning the facility to earn community service hours.

During the school year, youth would participate in the HM community service activities after school and on the weekends. During the summer, the youth participated on weekdays and weekends from 8:30 am until 2:00 pm. The youth attendance in HM community service activities was inconsistent for various reasons such as school schedules, youth simply not showing up, and court dates. Due to the inconsistency of the attendance, I would call the mentors in the morning on the days I was scheduled to observe an activity or conduct interviews to see if they had youth attending. Among those in attendance, I had to determine how many youths had assented to participate in my study and had parental consent. On five occasions I was told not to come as they did not have any youth, or they had an issue they were resolving with one of the youth and the activity was canceled for that day.

The time spent in these settings provided me years of experience and tacit knowledge.

These experiences also provided me questions and probes that I could ask and use during

69 interviews. I was an active member participating in the YCW program by facilitating the workshops. As a result, I developed good relationships with the facility staff. Unfortunately, even though I had established strong relationships at YDC, the facility administrators did not allow me to interview detained teens participating in the YCW program in their facility. This demonstrates the difficulty in gaining entrée to the youth subjects.

Gaining Entrée

Gaining entrée is the ability of a researcher to access a research site. Gaining access to a research site can be one of the main challenges in ethnographic studies and it can take time to gain the trust of the community and/or institution. Scholars have noted the difficulty of gaining entrée as an “outsider” with groups that have been stigmatized as criminal or deviant (Adler and

Adler 2000), and especially with communities that have a history of trauma and oppression such as colonialism (Tuhiwai-Smith 2012).

Being conscious of myself as a researcher and an outsider seeking to work with and study a marginalized population, I knew establishing trust early on was paramount. In 2011, I began exploring different opportunities to volunteer and establish connections with the social justice community on Oʻahu. I was quickly connected with Brian Bilsky who had founded the YCW program. He was very well connected and respected within the social justice community in

Honolulu; he invited me to join the YCW program and be a creative writing workshop facilitator at two different juvenile detention centers on Oʻahu.

After three years of facilitating writing workshops from 2012 to 2015 in juvenile detention facilities on Oʻahu, I obtained IRB approval to interview juvenile justice-involved youth, including youth detained at YDC. I approached the facility administration at two juvenile

70 facilities: a non-secure facility (HM), and a detention facility (YDC). I initially focused my efforts on gaining access to YDC. The administrators at the detention center initially appeared supportive and interested in the study, but they stated that they lacked the authority to grant me permission and access to conduct the study in their facility. They informed me that they would pass my research protocol up the chain of command to obtain approval.

After a year and a half of waiting for approval from the YDC facility, I still had not obtained permission. While I was unable to gain access to YDC, I received support from the HM staff. I, therefore, decided to focus my efforts on the HM community service program. Through conversations about the difficulty I had in obtaining permission to conduct the study at YDC and informing the HM staff that I had IRB approval for research at their facility, they invited me to conduct the study at their site. Because I facilitated and managed the YCW workshops at HM, I had established a trusting relationship with the HM community service program staff. They would frequently ask how the study was progressing and were very supportive of the study moving forward. They were also eager to assist me with recruiting and obtaining parental consent and youth assent. Many of the youth I had worked with at the YCW workshops at the

YDC facility participated in the HM community service program while on probation. The familiarity that the youth had with me from the YCW workshops at YDC was helpful in establishing trust with HM youth, as well as participant recruitment.

Regarding data collection at Seaside High School, in 2012, Dr. Katherine Irwin invited me to join her as she researched the Lunch Bunch groups at Seaside High School as part of her on-going ethnography of youth violence and interventions. Dr. Irwin had been working closely with Seaside High School and the Northward community since 2007, and was well-regarded and trusted by the administrators, counselors, and students at Seaside High School. Because Dr.

Irwin introduced me to the Seaside High School community, I was able to quickly build relationships with the counselors and students. I remained aware of my positionality as a researcher and a community ‘outsider’, and I informed the students and faculty that I was not only there to be a caring and supportive adult, but also to conduct research. The transparency of my intentions and the affiliation with Dr. Irwin made the transition into the Lunch Bunch groups relatively easy. Over time, the Seaside High School students and counselors recognized me as another nonjudgmental supportive adult for teens.

Through the long process of building trust and relationships in a closed network designed to protect juveniles, I was able to gain entrée to the youth for my study. After receiving approval from the institutions to conduct the study at the three research sites, I sampled the youth accordingly.

Sample and Sampling Procedures

There were a total of 64 participants in this study. I conducted interviews with nine court- involved youth, eight adults who had been involved in the justice system as young people, 21 community stakeholders, and 26 high school students. Of the eight in-depth interviews with adults who had experiences in the juvenile justice system as teenagers, six of the participants were college students at the time of the interview. The 21 community stakeholders included juvenile justice facility staff, teachers, counselors, and justice advocates from the various areas and communities of Oʻahu where the youth participants resided. In this study, I refer to juvenile justice facility staff as “community stakeholders” to protect their anonymity. The number of staff members in certain positions in the facilities and programs were small, which could potentially expose the identity of facility staff participants if I referred to them outright as facility staff. At

72 the same time, I recognize that the designation “community stakeholders” homogenizes what might be important differences in position and privilege within the facility and juvenile justice system.

Table 1 below provides a list of the youth participants, showing their assigned pseudonyms, sex, ethnicity, and the program in which I interviewed them.

Table 1. Youth Participants

# Name Gender Ethnicity Program 1 Alvin Boy White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 2 Trisha Girl Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 3 Vinny Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 4 Kula Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 5 Wilson Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 6 Brady Boy White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 7 Victoria Girl White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 8 Brooks Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 9 Chevy Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 10 Becky Girl White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 11 Scott Boy White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 12 Zipporah Girl White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups (Zippy) 13 Alexis Girl Black Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 14 Kanoe Girl Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 15 Krystal Girl Thai & German Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 16 Dolley Girl Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 17 Beth Girl Malaysian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 18 Hilary Girl White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 19 Samantha Girl Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 20 Charity Girl White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 21 Emma Girl Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 22 Jaret Boy White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 23 Kainoa Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 24 Ku Boy Native Hawaiian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 25 Jericho Boy Mixed Asian Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 26 Jasper Boy White Seaside Lunch Bunch Groups 27 Ella Girl Micronesian Home of Moderation 28 Marko Boy Filipino Home of Moderation 29 Dylan Boy Japanese Home of Moderation

30 Elijah Boy Samoan Home of Moderation 31 Eli Boy Micronesian Home of Moderation 32 Kalani Boy Native Hawaiian Home of Moderation 33 Chase Boy Undisclosed Home of Moderation 34 Ricky Boy Mexican Home of Moderation 35 Alyssa Girl Mixed Pacific Islander Home of Moderation

Table 2. Adult Community Members with Experience as Teens in the Juvenile Justice System

# Name Gender Ethnicity 1 David* Man Mixed Asian 2 Justin Man Korean 3 Tiana* Woman Mixed Asian 4 Jane* Woman Japanese 5 James* Man White 6 Matthew* Man Filipino 7 DeMont Man Black and Native Hawaiian 8 Sean* Man White *Indicates college students

Table 3. Community Stakeholders

# Name Gender Ethnicity 1 Pearl Woman Japanese and Native American 2 Nancy Woman Japanese 3 Diane Woman Japanese and Chinese 4 Ms. Phillips Woman Mixed Pacific Islander 5 Alanna Woman Mixed Pacific Islander 6 Raphael Man Mexican 7 Falala Man Tongan 8 Christine Woman Japanese 9 Ashanti Woman Gambian 10 Claire Woman White 11 Ruth Woman White 12 Andrew Man Mixed Asian 13 Nico Man Black

14 Leilani Woman Native Hawaiian 15 John Man Samoan 16 Adam Man Black 17 Monica Woman Filipino 18 Aaron Man White 19 Haley Woman White 20 Ikaika Man Native Hawaiian 21 Gabe Man White

In this study, I used purposive sampling, which is a prominent sampling technique used in ethnographic research (Lofland et al. 2006). The primary criterion for selecting the sample of

Seaside High School students was their experience and participation in the Lunch Bunch groups.

The Lunch Bunch program was designed as a non-punitive approach to working with teens that were experiencing difficulties in school, and as a result, the Lunch Bunch sample reflects two phenomena: First, the sample demonstrates the myriad of ways and reasons why students disengage from school. Second, it allowed me to examine non-punitive approaches to working with teens that were struggling in school.

Selecting a time to conduct interviews with teens was a consideration. Dr. Irwin and I did worry about students missing class to conduct interviews. We consulted with counselors to make sure students’ academic performances would not be negatively impacted. Counselors then identified students who had provided parental consent and assent to participate in the interviews and pulled them out of class accordingly. We called students out of class because we were unable to interview youth after school or on weekends; the students were too busy when they were not in school to participate in interviews. To ensure we were not disrupting instruction or testing, we would schedule interviews at the end of the school year, usually after finals were over, but before graduation when students were still required to be in attendance.

The sampling procedures I used for court-involved youth were convenience and opportunistic (Reimer 1977). I applied my previous experience, rapport, and knowledge that I developed with key individuals at the HM research site to identify participants. I focused my sample selection on youth participating in the HM community service program, as these youth were currently under the supervision of the juvenile justice system through probation. Also, many of the HM youth had previously been detained at YDC, and had participated in a YCW workshop at some point in their journey through the juvenile justice system.

Recruitment

To recruit participants from the Lunch Bunch groups at Seaside High School, Dr. Irwin would describe the study to students at the beginning of each semester. The announcement included information about the goals of the study, which were to learn about the experiences of teens in high school, and their involvement in and thoughts about the Lunch Bunch groups. Dr.

Irwin informed students that as part of the study we would conduct interviews and that participation in the study was completely voluntary. Dr. Irwin informed students that they could still attend the Lunch Bunch groups if they did not want to participate in the study and would not be penalized for not participating in the study.

Dr. Irwin had been working closely with Seaside High School counselors and the Lunch

Bunch groups since 2007 and had gained and maintained IRB approval to conduct a study of the groups6. She had followed the ethical guidelines of the IRB to obtain assent of student participants and consent of the students’ parents in order to conduct interviews with the students.

6 I received approval from Dr. Irwin to use the data we collected under her IRB protocol (26 interviews at Seaside High School). I also have a separate IRB approval to use secondary de- identified data that was originally collected under Dr. Irwin’s protocol.

Dr. Irwin distributed youth assent and parental consent forms to students at the beginning of the year, and periodically throughout the school year for students who lost their forms, and she reiterated multiple times that students could join the Lunch Bunch groups whether or not they chose to participate in the study.

To recruit juvenile justice-involved participants, the HM community service program mentors informed both the youth and their parents or guardians about this study and emphasized that participation in my study was completely voluntary. The mentors clearly informed parents or guardians and the teens that the study was separate from the HM program, and declining participation in the study would not impact their involvement in the community service program or the youths’ ability to meet their court-mandated community service hours or restitution. Once the mentors identified interested youth and received parental verbal permission to participate in the study, they distributed assent and consent forms to youth and their parents or guardians.

Before conducting any interviews, I explained to the youth participants the purpose and goals of the study, and their rights as study participants. My research goals for the HM community service youth were to learn about their experiences in the education and juvenile justice system, education, community service program, and the YCW workshops. I also informed the teens that if they volunteered to participate in this study, anything that they shared with me would be kept confidential and their identity would remain anonymous. I assured the youth participants that their probation officers and the HM mentors would not know what they were sharing with me7. I also informed the youth participants that all data including audio-recordings

7 Youth were informed that I was a mandated reporter and would be required to report anything they shared with me about harming themselves or others or being harmed by others. The youth understood this and seemed to be very familiar with that language and requirement. I did not experience any instances of youth disclosing abuse, neglect, or any other form of harm that was not previously reported or known by family court and the community service program staff.

77 and transcripts could only be accessed by me and would be password protected and stored in a secure location.

Recruiting court-involved youth, even with the assistance of the HM community service program mentors, proved to be challenging due to the low numbers of youth involved in the program. To get additional perspectives of experiences with youth punishment, delinquency, and the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi, I recruited adults who had been involved with the juvenile justice system as teens. Using snowball sampling techniques (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981) and my connections to college instructors and faculty, I recruited eight individuals over the age of 18 who had been in contact8 with the juvenile justice system as minors. These adults came from two different social networks, including individuals in my own personal network as well as students attending sociology courses at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. Regarding recruiting individuals in my social groups, I emailed recruitment fliers that explained the goals of the study and how to contact me if they were interested in participating in the research. To recruit students at UHM, with the instructors’ permission, I made announcements in classrooms that had 50 or more students.

I made announcements in college classrooms at UHM and distributed a recruitment flyer via email to college professors and graduate students informing them of my research and inquiring whether they or anyone they knew would like to volunteer to participate in my study.

To prevent conflict of interest, I did not recruit students from any of the classes that I taught.

Interested participants contacted me through e-mail. I informed college students that their participation would not impact their grade or relationship with their course instructors. Both

8 I define ‘contact’ with the juvenile justice system as an individual having interactions with law enforcement that may or may not have resulted in an arrest, were detained, summoned to family court, attended a court mandated program, or on probation at any time during their adolescence.

78 college students and adults in my social networks who were not college students were informed that their participation was voluntary and that all information shared with me would remain confidential, and their identities would remain anonymous. I also informed participants that I would maintain their anonymity by de-identifying the data, storing the audio-recordings and de- identified transcripts in a secure location and password-protect all documents and data.

Lastly, I utilized my personal network and the relationships I had developed in the juvenile justice and education systems in Hawaiʻi to recruit community stakeholders. I sent recruitment emails to youth justice workers, educators, and school counselors with whom I had established trusted relationships. Many of the participants with whom I had worked closely had heard of my participation with the YCW workshops and Lunch Bunch groups, and they did not hesitate to participate in an interview for this study. As with the other participants in this study, community stakeholders were notified that their information and identity would remain confidential, and all documents and recordings would be password protected and stored in a locked filing cabinet.

Data Collection

Data were collected on Oʻahu from 2012 to 2017. At Seaside High School, Dr. Irwin and

I conducted interviews at the end of each school year in a vacant room in the school counseling office to ensure privacy. We constructed and followed interview guides comprised of open- ended questions about students’ experiences with violence, and their perspectives of punishment or alternative measures, support, or resources in their schools, families, and communities. The interviews lasted between 30-90 minutes, and were conducted in a conversational format

(Schober and Conrad 1997) to provide youth an opportunity to discuss topics that were important to them that may not have been included in the interview guide.

For juvenile justice-involved youth in the HM community service program, I conducted interviews with nine youths from April 2017 to July 2017, and one week in October 2017. The interviews were conducted at the community service sites and the program’s office. The interviews lasted between 20-60 minutes and consisted of open-ended questions from an interview guide that explored the youth’s experiences with school, punishment or alternatives, law enforcement, and various programs in the juvenile justice system. Similar to the interviews with students at Seaside High School, the interviews with youth in the HM community service program were also conducted in a conversational format (Schober and Conrad 1997).

Between April 2017 and July 2017, I conducted interviews with eight adults ranging in ages from 18-35 who had experiences with the juvenile justice system as teens. I used interview guides comprised of open-ended questions about their teenage experiences with punishment, alternatives, delinquency, law enforcement, and the juvenile justice system. The interviews were conducted in the same conversational format (Schober and Conrad 1997). The interviews with adult participants lasted between 30-180 minutes and were conducted in an office on the university campus.

I conducted interviews with 21 community stakeholders between July 2015 and July

2017. The interviews were conducted at community stakeholders’ offices, homes, and in an office on the university campus. The interviews lasted between 30-180 minutes and consisted of open-ended questions from an interview guide about their experiences working with youth institutions and teens in Hawaiʻi. These interviews were also conducted in a conversational format (Schober and Conrad 1997).

In the five years I facilitated writing workshops as part of the YCW program, I collected

132 pieces of writing from girls and 400 pieces of writing from boys that were produced in the writing workshops. I facilitated the boys’ workshops one or two times a week for five years; I facilitated the girls’ workshops from 2015-2017 once a week in addition to the boys’ workshops.

In total, I facilitated two or three workshops each week from 2012-2017. The youths in the YCW writing workshops voluntarily participated in the workshops and voluntarily provided me with their writing at the end of each workshop. I would inform youth at the end of each workshop that they could keep their writing, throw it away, or I would collect it to be used for research while maintaining their confidentiality and anonymity. The YDC youth and staff were aware of and consented to the analysis and publication of the youths’ work produced in the writing workshops.

They were informed that the work would be anonymous, and confidentiality maintained by the usage of only the first initial of the author’s first name when his or her writing was referenced.

Data Analysis

All interviews that were audio-recorded were de-identified and transcribed verbatim.

After transcribing the interviews, I organized the transcriptions based on the research sites. I organized the youths’ writings based on gender and the date of the workshop they attended.

Because this study involved research participants who were minors, maintaining the confidentiality of participants was particularly important. I replaced participants’ names with pseudonyms to protect their identities and kept all documents in a locked filing cabinet. I also password protected all electronic files.

A grounded theory (Charmaz 2014) analysis was used to code and analyze youth writings and all interview transcripts. The emphasis of grounded theory coding is on stimulating

81 ideas rather than documenting or synthesizing information. The process of analyzing data through different phases of coding offers an analytic framework from which a researcher can develop categories and theoretical interpretations of participants’ experiences. Coding is a significant part of the analytical process and involves different stages.

I engaged in two waves of grounded theory analysis for coding data: 1) initial and open coding, and 2) focused coding (Charmaz 2014). The first wave of coding involves open or initial coding. Initial coding is the process that outlines the analytical direction of the study in the beginning stages of research. Initial coding informs subsequent deeper analysis through focused coding and memo-writing. The second wave of coding includes focused coding that emphasizes discovering prominent themes and patterns that emerged in the initial coding. Focused coding sharpens your analysis and “highlights what you find to be important in your emerging analysis”

(Charmaz 2014: 138). It is through the next stage of coding, “axial coding,” that researchers are able to connect categories and construct a framework that synthesizes the data (Corbin and

Strauss 1990). The flexibility of grounded theory coding allows a researcher to be “open to the data” (Charmaz 2014) in a way that enables them to elaborate and refine the ideas and theories that emerge in the different stages of coding and analysis.

In the first wave of initial and open coding, I identified emerging themes such as labeling youth, school disengagement, access to resources, trauma, supportive adults, and the influence of peers. After identifying the initial codes, new ideas and themes emerged expanding the initial coding scheme. I then developed focused codes to extract the details of the participants’ experiences with education, punishment, and support services. During my focused coding, I used comparative methods (Charmaz 2014) to revisit the data numerous times to continually interact with the data and emerging themes.

I wrote analytic memos while engaging in constant comparative methods to discover patterns and emerging themes in the data. Memo-writing serves multiple purposes. Writing memos “help you think about the data and to discover your ideas about them” (Charmaz 2014:

163). Through memo-writing, I refined codes and identified core processes occurring for study participants, such as youth “spectrum of hardships,” and “bouncing instability” through the institutional maze. To increase the study’s validity, I engaged in constant comparison throughout the data collection and analysis by revisiting and revising analytical codes, analytic memos, and interview guides (Charmaz 2014; Lofland et al. 2006).

Study Limitations

Studying youth punishment and the school-to-prison pipeline has limitations because of the involvement of minors, as well as the challenges inherent in gaining access to institutions of control. Because this study involved multiple research sites in two different youth institutions, it excluded youth who were not present and/or participants in these institutions, or youth who participated in institutions or interventions not studied in this research. Therefore, the narratives of youth who were disengaged from school, or were court-involved, or did not participate in the institutional programs examined in this study were not accounted for.

Furthermore, gatekeepers barring access to juvenile detention facilities excluded the accounts of detained youth. Youth detention and correctional institutions held concerns regarding the liability of allowing a researcher into their facility for a variety of reasons. One of their concerns involved the facility and state’s responsibility for the safety of the youth in their facility. To insure there were no liabilities regarding the safety for youth or staff participating in the study, the institution required review and approval of the research protocol by all parties who

83 could be held responsible for any potential harms the participants could experience by participating in the study. Another concern involved unfavorable findings posing liabilities that could result in possible sanctions for facility staff and the state, especially if they were reported and resulted in a Department of Justice investigation or lawsuit, such as the ACLU lawsuit and investigation of HYCF in 2003. The study protocol was submitted and approved by two authoritative personnel. However, when the protocol was moved along the chain of command, the process was stalled. With time limitations for this research, the participant observation and interviews of detained youth were no longer feasible for this study. As such, these concerns and gatekeeping processes resulted in difficulties gaining access to secure juvenile detention facilities.

In addition to the difficulties with gaining access to incarcerated youth for this study, it is important to address the methodological challenge of relying on informants sharing their experiences with trauma and hardship. With qualitative research, there is a possibility that some participants will not be inclined to discuss difficult subjects. Some readers may wonder if stoic participants’ experiences are marginalized because they do not share traumatic or difficult experiences with others. Of course, sharing narratives are a part of the agency of the participant, and their narratives reflect processes of image management (Goffman 1967; Ross and Mirowsky

1983). It is also the ethical duty of an ethnographer to not cause harm to the subject by probing for information that could trigger psychological distress. Participants voluntarily share their stories and it is up to them to determine if they feel safe to share their experiences.

Studies show that some participants provide socially approved responses as part of their image management (Ross and Mirowsky 1983). For example, Ross and Mirowsky (1983) found that, “Persons in positions of powerlessness or in cultures that emphasize correct appearances

84 may have learned that presenting a good face is an adaptive strategy” (p. 529). However, Ross &

Mirowsky (1983) also found that age was a factor in participants engaging in socially approved responses, and they found that younger respondents were less inclined to present socially approved responses than older participants (Ross and Mirowsky 1983). Thus, there is a possibility that participants in this study may have withheld some experiences with trauma and/or life hardships in order to present a “good face” to the researcher. However, based on the narratives shared with me and presented in this study, I believe there is much data demonstrating that trauma and adverse life experiences were common among the youth participants in this study.

CHAPTER 3. THE SPECTRUM OF CHILDHOOD HARDSHIPS

“I actually get kicked out on Sunday…the day after graduation,” Ku, an 18-year-old

Native Hawaiian graduating senior at Seaside High School explained. When asked if his parents were serious about kicking him out, he said, “Yeah…Mom said, “I’ll bring all of your stuff to the hotel and I’ll give you a few days at the hotel.” Ku’s family was low-income and had been homeless at one point when Ku was in elementary school. Ku lived in a small two-bedroom apartment with his parents and four siblings. His mom worked late nights and his dad was not working due to health issues. He said he was being kicked out because he got into an argument with his mom the day before Mother’s Day and did not come home on Mother’s Day to spend the day with her. Ku said he received a phone call from his mom that night saying he had to pack his stuff and be out of the house the day after graduation. He planned on moving in with his girlfriend who lived at home with her parents, which was about a two-hour bus ride from his parents’ home. He was not working but was hoping to get a job through an internship he was planning to start shortly after graduation. At 18 years old he was graduating high school, did not have a job, did not have a driver’s license or car, and was being kicked out of his family home.

In addition to these life changes and challenges, Ku had experienced other life hardships such as homelessness, domestic violence in previous romantic relationships, and sexual assault by a family member.

The moral panics surrounding juvenile delinquency tend to point to individual responsibility or criminality with no regard to structural oppressions and daily hardships in which deviance could be a form of response. However, youth narratives can provide us an understanding of what life is like for teens facing daily hardships, and at times severe forms of trauma. This understanding can provide context to why some youth are resilient to these

86 hardships, even when they falter and engage in deviance. As well as how other youth are able to hide their deviance and are lucky enough to not get caught.

A predominant recurring theme in this study were that teens confronted a spectrum of hardships that ranged from daily stressors such as poverty to severe forms of trauma such as sexual abuse. The effect of adverse life experiences varied for youth depending upon the challenges they faced and the systems of social and institutional support in their lives. The impact of such experiences was in the form of increased stress, anxiety, or feeling overwhelmed.

Some youth employed coping and survival mechanisms that were criminalized by the juvenile justice system, such as running away, truancy, or substance use.

The different stressors teens experienced at times overlapped in ways that increased the complexity of their lives (Lopez 2017). Some of the hardships (e.g. poverty) were structural inequalities that youth had no control over yet were expected to have individualized responsibility to navigate life’s challenges. These difficulties were what some scholars refer to as

“the legacy of colonialism,” which results in racialized and socioeconomic stratification that further relate to problems of substance use, depression, marginalization, and abuse for youth raised in places that have histories of colonization (Blair 2012; Irwin and Umemoto 2016;

Okamura 2008; Umemoto et al. 2012). These different strains, or trauma, in teens’ lives have been linked with delinquency (Belknap and Holsinger 2006).

According to mental health professionals, trauma can be defined as “an event in which the child or adolescent experiences intense horror, fear, or pain, along with helplessness”

(Greenwald 2002:6). Since the 1970s, scholars have argued that a broader definition of trauma is needed to address the spectrum of adverse life events youth experience that have a trauma-like impact, such as substantial loss of loved ones and intense and ongoing stress (Belknap and

Holsinger 2006; Greenwald 2002; Newcorn and Strain 1992; Scaer 2005). In response, some endorse Scaer’s (2005:2) broader trauma definition as, “negative life events occurring over the lifespan” that are, in part, “determined by the meaning that the victim attributes to them.” Based on these definitions, I define trauma as a range of “negative life events” (Scaer 2005:2), in which the individual experiences pain, fear, loss, and stress, either acutely or chronically overtime, as well as based on the meaning assigned to the trauma by the victim. Therefore, what might appear as an insignificant or frustrating event to one person could be traumatic to another.

In this chapter, I draw on feminist criminology and conceptions of trauma to demonstrate how a range of adverse life experiences pushed youth towards exposure to institutional control.

Feminist criminologists have noted the high rates of juvenile justice involved youth who have experienced trauma, particularly among girls (Belknap and Holsinger 2006; Chesney-Lind 1999;

Morris 2016; Simkins et al. 2004). I focus on the role of family instability shaped by racialized, gendered, and economic challenges that are rooted in the historical trauma of colonialism experienced by both indigenous and non-indigenous youth in Hawaiʻi. This chapter begins to demonstrate the influence that a spectrum of life hardships has on the difficulties teens face in the institutional maze.

I begin this chapter by examining the hardships youth faced at home. These challenges ranged from structural oppression to severe trauma. The structural forms of oppression discussed involved experiences with economic hardship, that for some youth involved financial insecurity and low-class status. I note the role colonialism, including White settler colonialism, has had in developing systems of stratification and economic structures that resulted in the economic difficulties youth and their families experienced. I continue my analysis with addressing the role of families and the challenges youth had with various family dynamics, such as over controlling

88 parents to the impact of family separation. I end the chapter by addressing severe trauma, youth coping mechanisms and resiliency. Youth disclosed experiences with severe forms of trauma such as sexual assault and physical abuse. Many teens in this study turned to substance use as a coping mechanism to deal with the various hardships, including trauma, that they had experienced. They also demonstrated a level of accountability for their deviance by acknowledging the choices they made were of their own volition. In addition, youth demonstrated resiliency and perseverance in the face of the spectrum of hardships they endured.

Youth Hardships at Home

Based on interviews with youth and adults, community stakeholders, and justice-involved teens writings, I found that youth faced a spectrum of hardships they endured at home. These adversities ranged from structural inequalities of low-income or working class, family separation, to severe traumatic experiences. Youth’s parents and families would struggle with structural inequalities such as the ability to afford and/or provide care-taking duties for the children; elderly family members in low-income families would receive minimal to no assistance

(Shapiro 2017); finding adequate housing to accommodate children (Desmond 2016); and the increased police surveillance within marginalized communities. Such structural inequalities would further limit opportunities available to youth compared to privileged teens. Many youths, particularly girls, from poor or working-class families took on significant domestic responsibilities in the home such as caring for younger siblings, cleaning, and cooking. Some teens also had care-taking responsibilities for adults in the home, such as a sick elderly relative or a substance abusing parent. While these hardships are related to policy and family, however, there is a linkage to the colonial history within which these youth are embedded.

Economic Hardships

Structural inequalities are common in places with histories of colonization. The historical trauma of colonialism is inter-generational through the structural inequalities marginalized communities experience historically on a daily basis. The legacies of inequality appear through loss of land, political disenfranchisement, ethnic stratification, poverty, cultural disorder, homelessness, low rates of higher education, substance abuse, and violence (Blaisdell and

Mokuʻau 1994; Cook, Withy, and Tarallo-Jensen 2003; Irwin and Umemoto 2016; Okamura

2008)(Blaisdell and Mokuʻau 1994; Cook, Withy, and Tarallo-Jensen 2003; Irwin and Umemoto

2016; Okamura 2008) . Racial hierachies in politics, economics, and education in Hawaiʻi are dominated by Whites, Chinese Americans ,and Japanese Americans (Okamura 2008). Native

Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are relegated to the lower racialized stratification order in

Hawaiʻi, which “restricts their access to socioeconomic opportunities and rewards” (Okamura

2008:56). Okamura (2008:56) has argued that, “ethnicity is the primary organizing principle of the socioeconomic status system, and therefore ethnic inequality, rather than equality of opportunity, is insitutionalized and entrenched as a fundamental condition of the social stratification order.” The ethnic and racialized stratification in Hawaiʻi is a structural inequality established in Hawaiʻi through colonization, which has had subsequent impacts on the lives of teens in this study and their families.

Structural racism and class determine societal positions and mobility of groups of people.

The intersection of racism and class limits access to opportunities and resources for disadvantaged groups in Hawaiʻi who are predominantly Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.

Inclusion and exclusionary practices reflect political, economic, and cultural power by those in

90 the dominant group. Multiple community stakeholders in this study discussed the limited opportunities available to youth including access to areas or activities outside of their communities. Educators and juvenile justice professionals observed that most of the teens on their case load or in their classrooms had never even left their community or neighborhoods. This notion was especially surprising to them considering the small geographical size of O‘ahu, where one can drive across the island in less than an hour. However, many youths in this study relied on public transportation, which made traveling across the island a timely and costly journey.

Community service mentors and school counselors in this study wanted to expose youth to new places and opportunities so that they could be open to new possibilities for their future.

Diane, a community service mentor, said that many of the justice-involved youth she had worked with had never left their communities. For some youth, participating in the community service program was their first time going to different parts of the island. Hence, “We try to do some different places. We like to do [community service] in different places they’ve never been. Cause some of them when they go, you go over the [mountains], they’re like “Oh, where are we going?” They don’t go to the other side of the mountains.” She said that the youth will act like they know where a popular beach is that teens hang out at, but when they go near that area, “they don’t know where [it] is, but they just say they hang out at…these places.”

Similarly, Ms. Phillips, a counselor at Seaside High School, wanted to expose her students to “new things.” Her “dream” was to be able to take students on field trips to the mainland, or to the other Hawaiian Islands, as many of her students had never traveled off the island of O‘ahu; some had never left their community of Northward. Ms. Phillips mentioned the lack of opportunities for youth and the discouragement some youth felt because of their family’s financial hardships. She mentioned goal setting was a difficult activity to get her students to

91 complete as they would often respond with “Why? Like, you know, it’s not like I’m gonna do anything anyway.” The hopelessness her students experienced came out of noticing the difference between how their family and community lived versus how families lived in more economically privileged communities:

If you have a family where you working so hard just to make ends meet and barely making the rent, you know. And some of our kids are home – they’ve been homeless, or they are homeless or dealing with that. Especially in Hawaiʻi, I would say it’s so stark the differences between [names affluent area] and Northward. I mean, just drive right over and it’s just amazing to see the difference. And the kids know that. And that’s why they stay within their neighborhoods and with people that they trust, their communities which they trust… And they know it’s not fair. And then for someone to be a teenager and to like already feel like life is not fair and why bother. That’s really sad.

While the desire community stakeholders in this study had to expose young people to new places and opportunities outside of their neighborhoods or communities were well intentioned, they were reflective of Western colonial ideologies of expansion and exploration. Furthermore, by pushing youth who do not feel safe or welcomed in more privileged environments could expose them to microaggressions and/or other forms of violence that could have negative impacts on youth. They could also function as reminders of the structural oppression and exploitation they have been socialized to either accept or ignore creating anger, irritation, and distrust that could lead to deviance as a response or expression of their frustration.

The economic differences in privileged and low-income communities are further exacerbated by the sheer high cost of living in Hawaiʻi that leaves many families with unstable housing. Community stakeholders were aware that some of their students would move frequently, or at times were even homeless. Claire was a white middle class teacher who taught at a low-income middle school. Claire’s school was near a large homeless encampment. While

92 their living situation was often unknown to many teachers, Claire said on occasion, teachers and school staff would learn a student was homeless. This was often when a student asked for school supplies. Claire recalled learning that one of her top students had been homeless for about three years. “One of his other teachers found out when he asked for a backpack. And that was how she found out. So then of course everybody took care of him and gave him everything he needed.”

She said if her students knew one of their peers was homeless, they would not tease or bully them. The students were “very supportive of one another. Like they don’t judge somebody. Like if everybody found out you were homeless, that wouldn’t make you not popular anymore. It wouldn’t destroy your friendships.” She felt it was probably because housing instability was normalized for them, and it seemed that her students recognized that homelessness “could happen to anybody.” While it was encouraging to see that homelessness and poverty were treated with empathy, institutional requirements still posed struggles for economically disadvantaged students.

Raphael, a Mexican man from the continental U.S., taught at a low-income middle school in a predominantly Filipino and Micronesian community on Oʻahu. Raphael quickly realized that homework was not a viable option for his students and made modifications to his pedagogy to accommodate the challenges students had with completing their homework. These challenges were often related to economic hardships students experienced at home. Raphael recognized the structural challenges many of his student’s faced outside of the classroom, such as not having the resources, tools, or time to complete their homework because of the difficulties low-income families experienced. He felt like homework was detrimental to his students’ grades, which felt unfair considering the disadvantages they already endured at home. He felt like homework

“turned into a punishment” for his students and feared it could result in students

(dis)engagement. Raphael said,

Because of the lives our students have, homework is not something that is readily possible for them. And by that I mean that if you come in without a bookbag or pencils or any materials and stuff like that, and I give you a piece of paper to take home, nine times out of ten you’re not going to bring that paper back...I just realized that they can’t and won’t, and not because, I mean sometimes, yeah it was their choice. But other times…it was just not a possibility. It’s not something that they would be able to do. And then, I would be like, “Okay, stay after school. We’ll work on this after school. You can do the homework after school.” But they had to go take care of their cousin or they had to go take care of their sibling and stuff like that. And some of them are the oldest in their family, so they have to be home because mom or dad is working and stuff like that. So, all of these different challenges that come on for them. And so then, of course, homework was not something that was possible for them.

Raphael had to change how he planned his lessons and time in the classroom. Raphael said, “My classroom turned into a lot of like, 15 minutes of instruction and everything else was activity.”

He would split his lessons into different parts, rather than have students “sit and learn the whole lesson at once.” He noticed a significant improvement in his students’ comprehension of the material, and an overall improvement in their grades after he modified his teaching method.

In addition to the economic challenges that impacted student’s availability to resources needed for school, Claire and Raphael recognized the role of food instability in the lives of their students. The United States Department of Education measures the rates of lower class students based on the number of students eligible for the free-lunch program. Claire and Raphael’s schools participated in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, a pilot program in

Hawaiʻi aimed to providing free lunch to all students attending a CEP school. To qualify for the

CEP program, schools must have 40 percent of their students meet the requirements for free

94 lunch outlined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)9. In other words, the program targets schools that are in low-income neighborhoods. In the school year 2017-2018, out of 284 public schools in Hawaiʻi, there were 52 schools across the state that were participating in the CEP program. The benefit of the CEP program was that all students were able to get two meals a day at school, and one free meal during the entire summer break. If a school qualified for the CEP program, then the entire student body would get free lunches, regardless of their family background. Students who were hungry and could not afford to bring a lunch or buy food at school, often suffered academically. As Claire put it, “How can students learn when they’re hungry? They can’t.” When discussing the possibility of the federal government repealing free lunch programs at public schools, Samantha stated:

Some kids don’t even eat at home. So, I don’t think you should take it away…like me, the only reason I eat is because during home I don’t really eat dinner sometimes. So, then I have to eat over here [at school]. But the lunch over here [at school] is not that good so like half the kids don’t really eat.

Economic depravation was a universal experience among teens in the study and shaped by colonialism. When asked what the biggest challenges were for youth in Hawaiʻi, poverty was a common response from both adults and youth. Teens experienced various challenges that were associated with economic hardships. In this study, 70% of participants indicated they experienced economic challenges. For some, it involved the strain of many people living in a small space with little privacy. Trisha, a Native Hawaiian girl who was one of the Lunch Bunch group participants, discussed the stress of living in a three-bedroom home with ten people. When

9 The CEP program is funded through by the USDA. See Hawaiʻi Department of Education (DOE), Community Eligibility Program (CEP) Frequently Asked Questions website for more information: (http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/TeachingAndLearning/HealthAndNutrition/StudentHealthResources/Pages/C EPFAQs.aspx)

95 asked if there was anything in the girls’ Lunch Bunch group that helped her cope with the stress at home, she said:

Trisha: Meditation. Researcher: Have you done that on your own? Trisha: I tried to, but in a house full of people it is hard to. There’s like a knock on the door and I am like “go away.” Our house is loud. The baby is crying. My little sister is crying because she is hungry. She is a bottomless pit. You can feed her, and she will still be hungry. Researcher: How many people are living with you right now? Trisha: Ten people in a three-bedroom house. I can be sitting in the bathroom in the bathtub with my eyes closed. That is the only quiet place that I can go. And then my little sister will knock on the door…I’m like “Who is it? Who is it? I’m coming, I’m coming.” And she is like “Can you pass me the…” I’m like, no. I’m not going to get that for you. So, I put everything outside the door, so she can’t ask me for anything else.

Similarly, Ella, a Micronesian justice-involved girl, was the youngest of eight siblings and lived at home with her mother and “a couple of my brothers and their kids, and their girlfriends.” She described that living in public housing with a lot of people in the household was at times challenging and that “I get irritated. But, not often.” For both Ella and Trisha, their experiences in an overflowing household led to daily emotional stress.

Ricky, a Mexican boy on probation, also recalled the stress of living in a three-bedroom house with seven people and three dogs. He said, “it’s kind of tight” and that he felt he did not have “privacy anywhere” because he shared a room with his stepbrother. Ricky mentioned that, because of the tense living space, “I feel like I’m always attacked. Like, of course I shouldn’t feel like that. They’re my family but…I always feel like it’s my fault, so there’s no privacy for me anywhere.” When asked why he felt attacked, he stated, “Well, it’s like I’m the easiest target because, I mean obviously me being in the court system. Like people are going to look down at me, so now I’m a target.” Feeling criminalized by his family resulted in Ricky feeling

96 unsupported and uncomfortable at home. This was especially challenging for him when he was on court-ordered house arrest and was only allowed to leave the house to attend school.

Some youth also experienced a more extreme housing situation – homelessness.

Samantha, a Lunch Bunch participant, recalled a time when her family (including her brother

Ku) lived on the beach in Northward when she was around six years old. She said,

There’s this one time we really didn’t have a house, so we lived on Northward beach…I liked it but not like it…I didn’t like living not in a house. But I liked it because we got to go beach every day and sometimes skip school and go to beach.

She said she had memories of that time period but stated that, “I don’t really try to look back at that because I’m in a house now. So, I don’t try and look back.” She appeared grateful to be in a home yet discussed the stress of living in a small apartment with seven family members (two parents and five children including herself), and a dog. She mentioned that they often “eat dinner on the floor” and not at a dinner table. Another girl, Charity, a Lunch Bunch participant, also described eating dinner with her family as not being at a dinner table. She said, “we don’t have a dining room table ‘cause our apartment is really small. So, we usually just sit on our beds and kind of watch TV.”

Samantha described the difficulty of being poor and the misconceptions politicians have of poor people. She noted an emphasis that some politicians put on individualizing the responsibility of poverty as a condition that poor people can easily improve themselves.

Samantha said:

I’m poor. Like, we can’t get up on our own…My mom is the only one working ‘cause my dad has stuff wrong with his body…So, my mom’s only working. So, I just have to start working at school. And I am right now…The only money we make is not a lot. But we don’t really use it for any like to go spend or stuff. We use it for bills to pay stuff…So, it’s just hard because, I don’t get spending money.

The youth themselves are aware of a connection between poverty and crime. The same notion is reflected in previous scholarship studying the relationship between economic hardships and delinquency. In particular, feminist scholars have found that concentrated poverty is linked to an increased probability of girls engaging in deviance and violence (Zahn and Browne 2009).

The limited opportunities and resources provided to youth drove some youth in this study to engage in criminal behaviors, such as stealing. Ella described stealing from liquor stores in her neighborhood. She said, “I used to walk in the store and grab me drinks and just walk back out.”

For other teens such as Dylan, a Japanese-American boy on probation, it was the sheer lack of money that was challenging for youth and for him personally. Dylan said:

Like a lot of kids now they’re growing up on welfare and stuff. They don’t have anything, so they’re out there committing crimes to go get what they want. Stuff like that. Stuff like I’ve experienced doing. Like stealing designer, selling designer stuff to get money. Doing what I can to…make a penny. Anything I can do.

Others engaged in deviant behaviors as a distraction to cope with the challenges they experienced. In cases where there was immense pressures and responsibility to assist with family tasks related to limited economic resources, youth in the study would engage in substance use, vandalism, and joy riding in stolen cars to distract themselves from the adversities at home.

These examples demonstrate the influence economic hardships have on family structure, which further impacts the youths in the study.

Family

Greater social and structural inequalities such as economic hardships, resulted in teens taking on responsibility for domestic duties that increased stress in youth’s lives. To make ends

98 meet, parents worked long hours and multiple jobs. Consequently, parents were often not home; and many domestic duties, such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their younger siblings became the responsibility of teens. Elijah, a Samoan boy on probation, was responsible for cleaning and babysitting his two younger siblings every day after school while his mother worked as a cashier at a gas station. He described being stressed “all of the time” because of his household duties. Ella, the girl described above who lived in public housing, also recalled that her mom “works way too much. The only time she’s off is like Wednesdays.”

In addition to the added pressure of responsibilities, girls were especially frustrated by feeling unappreciated by family members for their hard work in helping maintain their homes.

Girls engaged in unpaid labor in the home while their brothers did not have to engage in unpaid household work, especially if the brothers paid rent, as described by Charity. Charity a White girl who participated in the Lunch Bunch groups, was frustrated with her brothers for not having to do as many household chores, such as cleaning, washing dishes, and laundry. She was equally frustrated with her parents for the unequal distribution of responsibilities among her and her siblings and felt unacknowledged. She said, “I’m the most hardworking person in the house. My parents don’t even acknowledge it.” Her older brother was alleviated of household chores because he paid rent. Another girl, Krystal, a Thai and German Lunch Bunch girls group participant, described herself as “a cleaner…Cinderella. I’m literally Cinderella.” Similarly,

Trisha engaged in a significant amount of domestic duties and at times did not feel valued for the amount of work she did for her family. She talked about trying to get her little brother to help with household chores:

You know how we did the circle, the balance of life10. My circle is so off. Stress. Having to hear that I’m hated. I don’t think that it is irritating just to tell someone to do something once. I just asked him to do something once and he’s like “You’re irritating, I hate you.”

Trisha further described the burden of cooking responsibilities placed on her by her family. Trisha enjoyed cooking and was the designated chef in her home. However, there were moments when her culinary obligations were overwhelming, and she felt unappreciated. She said, “Regardless, if I say there are others who can cook in the house, Dad goes [to Trisha], ‘Start cooking.’ I feel like I just want to open a closet and go [hide] inside.” Samantha, a Native

Hawaiian girl, also mentioned the strain of domestic duties and her inability to get homework done because of household chores. She said, “Do your homework [at school]. Because at home it won’t be, I won’t have time to do my homework. And get this done. Because I have chores to do and all that…like cleaning house.”

Such struggles are further exacerbated in broken families as seen in stories told by teens with divorced parents who struggled with the changes separation created for their families.

Ricky, a Mexican boy on probation, described the emotionally painful custody battle between his parents and the dramatic family shift from, “a loving family to a completely different family.”

He moved back and forth between his father’s home in the Pacific Northwest to his mother’s home in Hawaiʻi. He coped with the stress of this dislocation by using marijuana. While living with his father in the Pacific Northwest, he was suspended for a month while in middle school for what Ricky described as, “marijuana possession and being under the influence at school.” He

10 The activity Trisha described was the Lokāhi Wheel. The Lokāhi Wheel was an activity developed to incorporate Native Hawaiian beliefs into the classroom. The He ʻUpena o ke Aʻo (2008) describes Lokāhi as, “balance, harmony, and unity for the self, in relationship to the body, mind, and spirit.” An example of the Lokāhi Wheel activity is provided in Appendix B.

100 was not arrested for the marijuana possession but was sent to an alternative school during his month-long suspension and had to attend drug counseling classes. Ricky recalled his family treating him as a “problem” after this incident. During his freshman year of high school, Ricky moved back to Hawaiʻi to live with his mother. His drug use escalated shortly after his return to

Hawaiʻi, and he was arrested for breaking and entering a house while intoxicated.

Family separation and divorce changed relationships youth had with their parents. Jane, a

Japanese college student, described the dissolution of her bond with her father after her parent’s divorce. Her parents divorced when she was about four years old. She said, “I only remember them fighting before they split.” She lived with her mother and grandparents and did not spend much time with her father as a child, and less time with him when she was an adolescent. Her mother did not think highly of her father and began barring her from visiting him. Jane described her relationship with her father as “extremely close” when she was young, even though she did not see him often, and said:

Towards about middle school time was when we started drifting apart more…I would go less [to her grandparents’ home where her father lived], like especially during elementary school, but then middle school I just stopped going at all…I asked my mom, like why can’t I go over to grandmas and grandpas house and she was like, well it’s ‘cause of your father. And I was like, what does that mean? And she never explained it to me.

Jane explained that one of the causes for the decline in her relationship with her dad “was because one of the boyfriends he had…just didn’t want me over at all.” However, Jane did not find out until the end of high school that her father was gay, which was the reason for her parents’ divorce. She said she was a little upset with her dad for not telling her, but was “more mad that like, you kind of let that separate us.” After discovering her father’s sexuality, their

101 relationship improved. However, she continued to feel that she could not rely on him for support, particularly financial support when she entered college.

Complex family relationships and living situations created additional strains for youth.

Alyssa, a Pacific Islander girl on probation, was raised by her grandmother and aunt, as her mother struggled with substance abuse. Alyssa’s family’s support and ability to care for her prevented Alyssa from entering child protective services (CPS), therefore Alyssa was raised by her relatives. Although she got along well with her grandmother, she did not have the best relationship with her aunt. She described her aunt as being manipulative and noted that, “She just always wants everything her way. She doesn’t even look at anybody else’s point of view. She just wants it done her way. I didn’t like it there.” Alyssa yearned for a closer relationship with her mother, and by the eighth grade, Alyssa and her mother were reunited. When I asked how the reunion was going, she stated, “I used to have a really good relationship. And then after, it turned like really bad, but now we’re just kind of like, making it better.” The event that had soured their relationship involved her mother shaming Alyssa for allegedly being intimate with a boy who was in a relationship with another girl. Alyssa had actually not been intimate with that boy, and felt betrayed by her mother for believing the rumor, and not Alyssa herself. She felt her relationship with her mother was improving after her mother “showed that she actually cared” for her when she apologized and “actually took me to school.”

The control and ideology that girls must be protected propagated by family members as

Alyssa experienced was a common theme among high school girls and justice-involved girls.

Jane had a close relationship with her mom but at times struggled with her being overbearing and described two instances in high school when her mom locked her out of the house for not being

102 home in time for curfew. For one of the two instances, she was late for curfew because her high school band performance ended later than expected. Jane recalled:

She knew that we were going to get back late, at like 10:30pm and I tell her like, ‘hey, we’re going to get back late, 10:30. Like we have to pack everything away. I don’t know if it might take longer but usually, we finish up by then and then this person will drive me home.’ And she was just like, ‘Okay.’ And that’s all she says. Come like 10:30pm, I try to text her, ‘oh we’re running a bit late. We got back late. There’s some traffic for some reason and we’re only packing away stuff now and I’m getting ready to come home.’ And she’d be like, ‘K.’ And I’m like can’t I have a bit more response to say or something. But sometimes I forget because we’re in the middle of moving big instruments and big things, like flags and stuff. And she would just like, very instantly just text me a bunch of, “where are you? Why aren’t you home? Like, what are you doing or who are you with? Like are you fooling around?”

Charity also described her parents’ concerns for her safety outside of the home. They did not allow her out of the house by herself. She described the controlling environment of her home, particularly evaluating her mom as “totalitarian.” She expressed frustration at not being able to have the freedom that her brothers had to do things outside of the house. The conversation we had on this topic was as follows.

Charity: I can't go outside because other people and me not being old enough to go out by myself…They still won’t let me go outside alone. Researcher: What is the fear about letting you go? Charity: Because apparently it seems there’s pedophiles… ‘cause we live in town so…pedophiles, molesters and things like that. Like, my parents think that once I take one step outside the door suddenly someone’s gonna grab me and stuff me in a sack and drive off with me in a white van. Researcher: What do you think about that? Charity: I mean, sure it’s a possibility ‘cause it’s the world and there’s still crappy people everywhere, but you don’t trust me to walk down two blocks to the sandwich shop? It’s come to a point where if I wanted to get Subway, my parents will have my brother come with me. Like, it was this stupid thing where I want to order a sandwich for myself – “Oh, take your brother with you.”

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Both Jane and Charity’s parents were concerned about their safety and wanted to protect them from potential sexual predators; whereas other girls had family members who were concerned about their sexual activity and wanted to prevent accidental pregnancy. In either case, the repressive or controlling environment was not supportive of girls’ gaining an appreciation of independence and self-responsibility. Ella described her older brothers as overly protective and concerned about her getting pregnant. She said:

My brothers, they would always tell me, you can party but just don’t come home like with my belly like pregnant, yeah… They always tell me, just know that when, if that happened, whoever did that, we want to kill him…I just be like shut up!

Beth, a Malaysian girl who participated in the Lunch Bunch groups, had witnessed her parents’ disappointment at her brother having a child at eighteen with his sixteen-year old girlfriend. Beth said that after her brother had a baby, her parents, “expect me to do better than he did,” although they did not become stricter with her. She said, “I think they became more strict on him. Not necessarily me because they trust me more than they do him.” However, she noted that her parents did not like her hanging out with boys. She explained, “They don’t even like me hanging out with my gay friend. And it’s like, it’s not a date. He has a boyfriend.” Beth described her strategy for managing her parents’ concerns and maintaining their trust by telling “them what I know they want to hear…But, I don’t necessarily tell them who I’m with all the time.” Beth’s other management strategy was to let her brother know her whereabouts if she did not feel comfortable telling her parents. She described the rules her brother had for her as “you can do anything I’ve done but you can’t do it until the age I started.” When asked how she felt about that rule, she said, “You know…you started kind of young. But if that’s your rule, I’m ok with

104 that.” She mentioned that her brother would not be okay with her having a child at sixteen, indicating a more protective stance and different standard for her than his girlfriend.

Another type of family relationship change youth experienced was the major loss of a close family member. Not only did teens grieve and deal with the trauma of losing a loved one, there were major shifts that occurred within the family. Krystal’s and Ella’s fathers passed away when they were young. Krystal described this loss as a shock and explained feeling devastated.

In fact, she suggested that of all her siblings, she was the one who took his death “the hardest.”

Not only was it an emotionally painful loss, but it shifted responsibilities and relationships in her family. She recalled her older sister “thinks that she has this mentality of her taking over my dad’s spot…So now she’s running the rules. She’s telling us what to do.” Krystal explained her frustration with her sister’s new role in the family and the control her sister has over her. She described trying to get permission from her sister to do activities out of the house. “She’s like,

‘no, stay home. Mom wants you home.’ Because you know…she’s always worried because of the community here. She’s always worried about where I am, what I do.” Ella, a Micronesian girl on probation, mentioned her father passed away when she was seven years old but did not want to discuss her father’s death during her interview and quickly moved on to talking about being raised by her seven brothers and mother. It appeared that her older brothers took on a parental role and became father type figures for her after her father died. Dolley, a Lunch Bunch participant, noted the change in her foster home after the death of her foster mother. She said,

“Ever since she passed and stuff, we’ve been like splitting up and not like hanging out.” Dolley described her foster mother as the “glue to our family.”

Family therefore was a significant influential factor in causing stress and trauma for the youth in the study. Whether it was through a parental divorce or a death, families would impact

105 how the youth needed to behave, what types of responsibilities they needed to perform, and what deviant behavior they would turn to in order to cope. However, there are more types of trauma and strain that youth faced in the study.

Severe Trauma

Different types of abuse, such as physical, emotional, and sexual were the severe forms of trauma teens experienced on the spectrum of hardships. Studies have found that the majority of delinquent school girls and detained girls have experienced some form of trauma, ranging from neglect to sexual abuse or assault (Belknap and Holsinger 2006; Chesney-Lind 1999;

Morash and Chesney-Lind 2009; Zahn and Browne 2009), and that victimization is a risk factor for delinquency (Belknap and Holsinger 2006; Zahn and Browne 2009). In a study conducted by

Belknap and Holsinger (2006:65), they found that “almost half of the youth believed the abuse was related to their subsequent delinquency, and girls were significantly more likely than boys to report this.” Youth, particularly girls, who have experienced victimization and live in disadvantaged communities are more likely to engage in deviance, especially violence (Zahn and

Browne 2009). Consistent with the literature, girls in this study reported more instances of running away and sexual abuse than boys. There were eight girls in the YCW program who wrote about running away. There were three girls and one boy in this study who had disclosed victimization of sexual abuse. However, boys reported alarmingly high rates of physical abuse.

Some girls in this study such as Zipporah experienced sexual abuse. Zipporah had participated in the Lunch Bunch groups for most of her time in high school. During an interview shortly before her high school graduation, she talked about her mother’s drug addiction, and described instances in which her mother allowed men to sexually abuse Zipporah in exchange for

106 money to purchase drugs. There were also times when her mother was highly intoxicated and would engage in behavior that exposed Zipporah to other harms. She said, “I remember one night my mom said she was gonna go out for a walk. We ended up walking outside [on] the road for like two days straight. Me with no shoes, in my school uniform.”

There were also numerous instances in the YCW workshops in which girls wrote about their sexual abuse, including being manipulated by a pimp to engage in sex work. A girl in the

YCW workshop who I refer to as S.11 frequently wrote and talked about her pimp and her experiences engaging in sex work. She recognized that “I need to spend less time hanging with my friends and drinking and smoking. Especially being with my pimp. But that shit is fucking hard. So, I don’t know if I can live up to it.” The manipulation and victimization by her pimp was evident in a writing she produced:

I love you, I love you not. I need you, I want you. I hate you. I’m sick of you. I feign for you. I dream of you. I feel for you. I know you’re there. I can’t let go, though of the despair. Are you real? Are you a figment of my imagination? Can I touch you? Can I help you feel what you’ve made me feel? You stole my innocence. Do you remember me? Do you pity me? Do I have a part of your heart? Do you think of me? Do you see the same blue I see?

No. No. No. No. No. No.

This isn’t me missing you. This is me missing the me I used to be, before you took me.

Girls in the YCW workshops who disclosed their experiences of trauma also revealed their substance abuse. Other studies have had similar findings. “Girls who had been violently

11 To protect their identity, youth who participated in the writing workshops, in which I only had permission to collect their writing, are referred to by one initial of their name as requested by Family Court.

107 victimized also were more likely to report associations with deviant peers and use of illegal substances” (Zahn and Browne 2009:174). There were 31 writings produced by girls in the YCW workshops that discussed their challenges with substance abuse and maintaining sobriety. There were 12 youth and six young adult participants who disclosed substance use or abuse in their interview.

I observed that girls in the YCW workshops would feel comfortable sharing traumatic experiences through class discussions and in their writings. There were seven girls in the YCW workshops who openly wrote about traumatic experiences and would share their writings with the class. One girl who is referred to as N., was detained at YDC for four months and regularly participated in the YCW workshops. She disclosed in her writing and class discussions that she had been kidnapped, beaten, sexually assaulted, and injected with drugs by her boyfriend. In one of the YCW workshop free writes, shortly after she was detained at YDC, she expressed her anger towards her abuser and wrote:

Fuck you brah12. You fuck me over…you can rot in jail you sick fuck. I’m over your sick, dumb, nasty ass. Your lifestyle is pilau [rotten]. I can’t believe I chose to be with someone like you, you sick bastard. I hope you get lickens [hit or beat up]. You only hit girls ‘cause you scared.

N. still had bruises on her neck from the assault when she shared her free write. N. also wrote about her substance use and her goal to maintain sobriety and “not go back to drugs and bad things.”

In the four months that she was detained, there was a progression in N.’s writing that showed her slowly healing. After a couple months of being detained, N. wrote,

12 “Brah” is a Hawaiian Pidgin term for “bro” which is short for brother.

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It’s hard to stop thinking about him. Honestly, I can’t see how you could get over your problems and I can’t. I also try to forget, but it all comes back here and there when somethings remind me of him. But yes, I deserve better. I deserve better.

She also mentioned her desire to return to school and wrote, “I wonder how much longer it will be for me to stay here. I want to go back to school and graduate.” I was informed by staff that she was being detained for her “protection” until they could place her in a rehabilitation program.

After four months at YDC, she found out that she would be sent to a program on the mainland for about a year. In her last YCW workshop, she wrote,

I’m very excited and confident about this program. I know this is good for me because this is a new start and a big chance for me to change and do good. I can see myself when I’m 18. I’ll be doing good and in college.

Physical abuse was also a reoccurring experience for youth in this study, particularly boys. DeMont, a Native Hawaiian man, said he “grew up in a violent home.” He was frequently beaten by his mother and said, “I feared my mom, like literally feared her. Like I felt like I was going die. You know what I mean, eh, like, “Oh, she going kill me.” He described his mother’s regular physical and verbal abuse: “whenever she felt negative about a situation, especially where I was concerned or where I reminded her of my dad or whatever the reason was, her first reaction was always to hit.” Scholars have noted that “for both boys and girls, direct victimization in the community best predicted problem behaviors such as delinquency” (Zahn and Browne 2009:173). In DeMont’s case, his exposure to violence and victimization did lead to delinquent and later criminal behavior as an adult. DeMont spent most of his adult life in and out of prison and described his main method of solving problems was through fighting, both as an adolescent and an adult. He said he “grew up learning that when you mad you handle that. You know what I mean? You gotta fight.” It took him years of incarceration before he learned what

109 he described as more “productive” methods of fighting back, such as through education and knowledge. He became a prisoner advocate while incarcerated and after his release.

Another boy, Dylan, a 17-year old Japanese-American boy on probation, experienced physical abuse and witnessed violence from his father. He described the abuse he experienced:

“Like, I get beat by my dad, like physically, like bad. Like my face swells up type of stuff.”13

Dylan attributed his experience of abuse with his delinquency. He said, “I think that [abuse] gets you more angry and like makes you want to do more stuff. That’s just what I’m seeing now a days…they want to do something bad because they think it’s right.” When asked if his dad always disciplined Dylan by hitting him, he responded:

Yeah. And it wasn’t really talking or anything. It’s more like, like, oh, like you’re going to that? You should lift up the belt. Like you know what I mean? Like when I was a kid lift up the belt. Or like when I started getting older like 13, 12 years old, my dad was just like oh, you better get ready for the like, you know what I mean? Like put his hands up and stuff.

In addition to his own abuse, Dylan witnessed his dad beat up his older brother and being arrested for the assault. His brother was 20 years old when the incident occurred; Dylan was 17.

When I first met Dylan in a YCW workshop at YDC, he was being detained for a probation violation because he tested positive on a drug test shortly after witnessing the assault at home.

He said he failed his drug test because he used Xanax to cope with having witnessed his father assaulting his brother, and then seeing his father get arrested. Witnessing violence has also been found to be a factor involved in youth delinquency and violence (Zahn and Browne 2009).

13 At the time of the interview, Dylan was a minor and living at Home of Moderation. His community service mentor, probation officer, and the institution’s mental health professionals were aware of the abuse he experienced at home.

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Coping Mechanisms, Escaping, and Resiliency

An overarching narrative for the youth in this study was experiencing stress, discomfort, or abuse at home and seeking ways to spend less time in that space. This narrative was evident in a pattern of different coping mechanisms that led some youth into precarious, and at times, illegal situations. Some teens in this study were able to get out of difficult situations, while others were not as fortunate and ended up in contact with the criminal justice system. Their challenges were directly linked to teens’ exposure to institutional discipline and control, either in school, mental health institutions, or the criminal justice system.

The coping mechanisms that teens engaged in, such as running away or substance use, were criminalized by institutions of control. The stressors and experiences with trauma, loss of a family member or friend, abuse, and/or overly controlled by parents, limited opportunities for girls that resulted in extreme amounts of stress and pain, including feeling as if they had no options. Some girls turned to ‘unhealthy’ coping mechanisms that were available to them, such as over or under eating, reliance on romantic relationships as a form of escape, running away altogether, or turning to substance use (Chesney-Lind and Shelden 2014; Irwin and Umemoto

2016).

For many youth, running away or engaging in substance use resulted in their first exposure to the criminal justice system. Dolley was in the foster care system and described using drugs as a coping mechanism after another loss, the death of her “aunty14,” and said that “[the drugs] didn’t make me a better person.” She noted that drugs only “made me runaway and get away from life. And I tried running away…and then my uncle got mad at me and now I’m on

14 “Aunty” or “Uncle” are terms of endearment and respect used in Hawaiʻi towards elders who are considered family but might not necessarily be blood related. It is also a way of showing respect and relation through community. For example, public school teachers may be referred to as Auntie or Uncle by students.

111 probation.” Dolley said she wanted to “run away from [her] problems.” Girls in the YCW workshops would write about being detained because they had run away; or were concerned they would not get placed into a drug rehabilitation program because of their history of ʻrunning.’

While teens may turn to ‘unhealthy’ coping mechanisms to deal with pain, stress, and anxiety, they did recognize that they made these ʻbad choices,’ and many took responsibility for their actions. However, youths in this study noted the challenges they faced in their ability to make changes and ‘make good choices.’ Some challenges they identified included not having a support system, positive role models, or access to resources. They also felt that they were unable to live a ‘normal life’ or engage in activities that ‘normal girls’ engaged in, such as joining high school sports teams or clubs often because of their duties at home or the costs involved in participating in extra-curricular activities. A girl in the YCW workshops at YDC who I refer to as S. wrote:

I always had a hard life growing up. Never bragging or telling a lot of people. But I had two of my parents were on drugs from young age. I also have three sisters…I’m the youngest. I remember seeing my mom getting beaten and also me and my sisters. My dad always had anger management problems. Ever since I was five he was in jail. Always just had my mom kind of and my grandma and sisters… I learned how to be an adult at a very young age. I got my own medical, my own job, and etc. These things will help me know what to do when I am actually an adult. Sometimes I wish I could play volleyball for my school or just be a normal teen and do things with friends but for me it seems unrealistic. I don’t know if it’s okay that most times I’m okay with it. Life is not easy [is] what I learned, but as long as you get back up it’s all ok.

Some girls felt they had no options as they internalized criminalized notions of themselves as a “bad person.” This indicated they had either adopted societal narratives of criminalization or had accepted that they were “bad,” and in need of a transformation while being hopeless with no ability to change. Girls stated they wanted to make adjustments in their

112 lives and move forward, but constantly found themselves in states of ambiguity due to their limited options or internalized criminal narratives. Youth in this study indicated they often did not “want help” from others and were resistant to support services. They preferred to continue to rely on the coping mechanisms they knew and were comfortable with, such as substance use.

Drug and alcohol use were pervasive among teens in this study. Many teens in this study began using drugs and alcohol at a young age. The average age participants began using drugs or drinking alcohol was 12 years old. For some participants, their substance use became an addiction, which was one of the many factors they attributed to experiencing challenges in school and contact with the juvenile justice system. Justice-involved youth with drug and alcohol addictions were often adjudicated to attend drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Incarcerated teens who participated in the YCW workshops frequently wrote about their substance use. One girl who I refer to as A., reflected on how she typically would spend her day and how she would like to change it:

I spend my day with my girls…Always out getting high or tryna get drunk. I think I should spend more time with my family. I’ve spent so much time with my girls out getting high or drunk. I don’t even spend time with my family. I think we all should get together and catch up on things. And I honestly think I should spend less time with my girls because, it sucks knowing they won’t be here for me at times like this [incarcerated], but I know my family got me.

For many youth participants, however, their introduction to substances were through family members. Dylan said the first time he smoked marijuana was with his older brother.

Ricky also watched his older sister use marijuana, and eventually turned to it to cope with the difficulties he was experiencing with his parents’ divorce, and his subsequent moves between his father’s and mother’s homes. Beth also observed her older brother using substances, mostly

113 marijuana and alcohol, and would recreationally smoke marijuana or drink alcohol with her friends. She also learned how to hide her substance use from her parents after observing the ways her brother got caught by her parents. She learned to do the opposite of what her brother did. S. wrote in a YCW workshop about her parent’s influence on her drug use, but also took responsibility for her ‘choice’ in using drugs as a coping mechanism:

Not blaming anyone that I have a problem with drugs. It’s mines because I have choices and god gave me eyes and a mouth for a reason. After my mom left last year it was hard for me. My mom was the only person I could talk to about everything helping me stay sober because she been 11 years clean from meth. But after she left it was hard to start doing things on my own. That’s when I started getting deep into meth for the first time.

While some teens in this study turned to substance use and running away to manage their hardships, youth still found agency amongst their adversities, and were impressively resilient in persevering through the various hardship’s life presented them.

For the most part, teens in this study were resilient to the many strains, stressors, and traumas they experienced. Resiliency can be defined as, “a set of qualities that foster a process of successful adaptation and transformation despite risk and adversity” (Bernard 1995: 2). Some youth in this study had social support to assist them in their ability to manage their stress and strains. Youth often turned to peers rather than parents for social support. When asked how school was helping with stress, Samantha said, “Friends. Because they make me more happy over here [at school] because sometimes I don’t really want to go home. So, then I have to like…I have to suck it up and go home anyways ‘cause that’s the only place. And so, I go home.” Samantha’s friendships provided her the support she needed at school, which also gave her the strength to face the adversities she experienced at home, particularly her domestic responsibilities and family expectations. With the challenges experienced at home it was

114 understandable that Samantha sought support from others outside of her family. Adolescence is a transitional period between childhood and adulthood in which teens also experience a transition between levels of support. As noted by (Calarossi and Eccles 2000: 662), “…teens move away from parents as their primary source of support and turn to peer relationships that will provide support as they take on adult roles.”

Similar to Samantha, Kanoe a Native Hawaiian student at Seaside High School, also demonstrated resiliency and found social support and motivation through her friends. Kanoe was a very determined teen who demonstrated strong leadership skills and had high aspirations for her future. She tended to overcommit to various activities and work that at times negatively impacted her grades at school. She was passionate about her extra-curricular activities such as working-out and would hide some activities from her parents because she feared they would not be supportive and make her quit an activity or job, especially if her grades were slipping. As such, her friends were a main source of support for her. She described keeping her friend “circle really small” and said she was “extremely picky with my friends.” Kanoe mentioned that when she:

“first started making friends, I picked friends that had what I didn’t have. So, if I wanted motivation in school, I’d pick the friend who was really motivated in school, straight A student. If I needed more social skills, then I’d pick someone who was more social and outgoing. So that’s kinda what I did and all my friends either filled in the parts that I couldn’t get, and then like them being around me rubbed off. So, I got that.”

She demonstrated her autonomy, social competence and problem-solving skills in her process of seeking friendships that would motivate and support her in areas she felt she was lacking. She was able to manifest resilency in having a “sense of purpose” and persistence to push through multiple risk factors including structural oppression (Bernard 1995).

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Research on resilience has tended to focus on individual differences in response to risk factors, and the role of different “protective factors” such as social support or positive educational and housing climates (Born, Chevalier, and Humblet 1997). While some youth in this study did have protective factors that prevented their entry into the institutional maze, particularly the juvenile justice system, other teens were not as fortunate. Yet they were able to be resilient to their victimization in their own way. Their resiliency was evident in the choices they made to take ownership over their experiences and hardships by viewing the challenges as character or strength building. Teens described “being stronger” after persevering through a hardship or even multiple hardships. Overcoming a life difficulty or learning to withstand it in a productive manner provided youth with a positive outlook on the many life strains they endured.

Many victimized youths therefore did not view their victimization as ‘trauma’ but as learning experiences. S. stated:

There’s so much bad things that happened to me ‘til this day. I’m the type of person that believes all these kinds of things happen for a reason. It helps shape you to be the person you are today, like I feel so strong and independent in so many ways. Never give up on your life is what I sometimes have to remind myself. Also telling myself always work towards being better and have a better life than my parents. I feel like everything happens for a reason. At times I feel like why does god have to give me parents like that or a life I have, why couldn’t I have two normal parents and we all could have a normal life. Even if it’s not normal at least a good one. But then I think I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Similar to S., another YCW workshop participant, K. wrote, “I’m thankful for the pain I went through because it made me who I am today.” Youth who were able to view their adverse life experiences as important aspects of their identity development were able to cope with their hardships in “a more active manner, rather than being fatalistic, passive and resigned…they have greater faith in their own efficacy and have greater self-esteem” (Born et al. 1997:681). Taking

116 ownership for their deviant actions and victimization became a positive mechanism of healing and moving forward. There are many positive components associated with resiliency, yet for marginalized youth, it is important to note the complexity of resilience and the possibility of more expectations being placed on resilient youth by institutions and society.

Scholars have noted the complexity of resiliency, particularly for marginalized youth who are in the juvenile justice system (Rolnick 2019). The complexity lies in the different expectations placed on youth who have either experienced different levels of trauma or those who have not experienced trauma. As noted by Rolnick (2019), “For young people who are viewed as acting out as a response to trauma, a return to the status quo of non-offending is a satisfactory outcome; personal growth is not is not required. This creates a paradoxical situation in which more is expected of the most disadvantaged” (p.1420). While resilience can be perceived as a positive outcome from experiences with trauma and involves growth, it is important to not place value only in a young person’s “ability to rise above pain” (Rolnick

2019:1421). In addition, too much emphasis on an individual’s resilience can distract from structural and historical forces that contribute to forms of inequality that shape the lives of young people in Hawaiʻi.

Conclusion

Institutions played a large role in teens’ lives. The spectrum of hardships was a significant part of the challenges they experienced at school, and for some, led to their entry and exposure to institutions of control, such as the juvenile justice system. Sociologists have addressed the importance of different institutions not only in their construction of social

117 structures, but also as important socialization agents. The family is a primary socializing agent involved in the socialization of behavior, culture, morals, and values. While institutions can be sites of socialization, they can also be confining and distressing, and at times, add to hardships and/or trauma youth experience.

Institutional factors and socializing agents, such as family and income, determined what neighborhoods youth lived in, and thus, what school’s youth had access to and attended. If youth were living in low-income communities and their families struggled to make ends meet, they could not afford to attend private schools. Disruption in education also occured when youth moved neighborhoods and schools frequently. David, a mixed-Asian adult, described his childhood as growing up in a “broken home.” “[I] moved around a lot as a kid, so I didn't really have a real stable life. Like, I didn't really have a stable household or anything like that.”

Because he moved frequently, he also changed schools frequently. Studies show the stability of home ownership and school attendance increases positive life course outcomes (Haurin, Parcel, and Haurin 2001). A lack of stability therefore negatively influenced some participants in this study. Youth experiencing frequent moves and major life changes, such as a death in the family, struggled in the schools they attended and with their level of school engagement. Krystal’s story is an example of this.

Krystal described her family’s emphasis on the importance of school. Her father had a

PhD in Psychology and instilled in his children the significance of obtaining an education. Her father passed away towards the end of her eighth-grade school year. She mentioned that before her father passed away, her family lived in Honolulu, and she was not performing well in school.

Her father moved her and her siblings to Florida where she excelled in school. However, after her father passed away and her family moved back to Hawaiʻi, her mother would have preferred

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Krystal to attend private school but could not afford to send her and her siblings to private school. If she was not able to attend private school, Krystal would have preferred to attend school online, however, her mother would not allow it. Moving to Northward resulted in Krystal attending Seaside High School, as it was the public school assigned to that neighborhood.

Krystal continued to do well in school but struggled with engaging with peers.

Stability in school and in the home also assists in maintaining peer relationships and support networks in communities that youth are raised in. David stated that he did not bother to make friends because he knew he would probably move soon. Krystal also had difficulties in making friends when she first started at Seaside High School. She described herself as “a loner,” and would get to school early to hang out with her teachers, who she bonded with. It took her some time to make friends and she eventually met Kanoe on the bus. She said, “a week after that,

[Kanoe] was like, oh, let’s eat in the cafeteria. And then we started hanging out.” Building a friendship with Kanoe helped Krystal feel more comfortable at school. However, I noticed the beginning of Krystal’s sophomore year of high school, her friendship with Kanoe was strained.

Krystal mentioned she did not spend as much time with her and was focused more on school.

The separation from family and frequent moves to multiple foster home placements were traumatic, and intensified hardships for youth. Dolley had lived in twelve foster homes before being moved to a home with her two other siblings. When asked if she remembered how old she was when her first foster placement happened, she said, “All I remember was getting taken around two, two and a half. I remember my mom hiding me inside a house because she didn’t want me to leave.” Zipporah was also removed from her mother’s care and place in child protective services (CPS). This experience was also traumatic for her, as seven years later,

Zipporah stated she could recall “every single detail” about the day she was removed from her

119 mother’s home and placed in foster care. Zipporah went to live with different family members and was eventually adopted by one of them.

In this chapter, I drew on feminist criminology and conceptions of trauma to show how a spectrum of hardships pushed teens towards institutional control. These challenges ranged from daily experiences such as poverty or family separation, to severe trauma such as abuse. While the teens survived these experiences, such hardships impacted them differently. Consistent with the literature, girls in this study disclosed more often than boys that they had experienced severe victimization of sexual assault and abuse. Boys, in comparison, reported alarming accounts of the physical abuse they endured. For some youth, such experiences were overwhelming and resulted in deviant coping mechanisms or behaviors, such as substance use. Other youths were resilient and found their hardships to be character building and experiences to draw strength from. They were able to use their victimization in a productive way, even after exposure to the institutional maze, particularly the juvenile justice system.

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CHAPTER 4. PUSHED OUT: ADOLESCENCE AND THE STRUGGLE WITH EDUCATIONAL ENGAGEMENT

“School was a joke,” Justin told me on a Spring afternoon in Honolulu. We were sitting in my office at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa. Justin was Korean and in his mid-to-late thirties. As he reflected on his adolescence and experience in the juvenile justice system in

Hawaiʻi, he continued to describe his lack of interest in school as a teenager. “School was a game that I thought, at the time, that I could just fuck off. I didn’t see any point to anything that they were trying to teach me.” Justin was not alone in his negative perception of school. Other participants in this study had a similar disinterest in school.

Holding students individually responsible for their lack of commitment to education and school attendance is a discourse that conceals structural inequalities. Indeed, as critics have argued, instead of prevailing explanations that “tend to focus on psychological traits and individual deficits” we should examine the “oppressive economic and social structures bearing down on young people” which “requires a critique of the dehumanizing forces that operate within and outside schools and…a critical pedagogy that is more attuned to the influences of globalization and popular culture on young people’s lives” (McInerney 2009: 23). As such, it is important to look at the role structural inequalities have in influencing student engagement.

School engagement can range from active class participation to student’s being completely disengaged and not attending school at all. Engagement can include different facets such as behavioral (participation), emotional (feelings of positivity or negativity), and cognitive

(investment in comprehension) (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris 2004). Sometimes these different components of engagement function independently, while at other times they intersect.

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The process of school disengagement can be one of alienation for students that does not always result in dropping out, but can do so, especially when it is facilitated by suspension and/or expulsion. Alienation is a process that develops over time and defined as “a decreasing sense of belonging in terms of learning, teachers and classmates at school” (Hascher and Hadjar

2018: 171). However, critical theorists argue that it involves “student estrangement from the learning process, as manifested in behaviors such as passive resistance, withdrawal of labor, truancy, disruptive activities, violence, self-harm and dropping out of school” (McInerney 2009:

23; Johnson 2005). Different processes can occur that result in students being pushed out of school, feeling unsafe, uncomfortable, and unwanted. School engagement and disengagement, which have some similarities and some differences from alienation (Hascher and Hadjar 2018), can include ambiguity that occurs for those students who simultaneously want to be at school, but do not feel safe or welcomed (Atweh et al. 2008).

Punitive and discriminatory practices, policies, or ideologies can alienate students through the creation of an uncomfortable or unsafe environment. This can also involve denying social and academic support, which can lead to a decrease in a student’s school attendance and in some case, result in students disengaging from school and dropping out entirely (Bowditch 1993;

Bracy 2011; Giroux 2003; Hall 2010; Hirschfield and Celinska 2011; Irwin et al. 2012; Kupchik

2010; Raible and Irizarry 2010; Simkins et al. 2004). Teens who do not “see any point” to what they are being taught in school or who feel unsafe in school, might choose to, or be forced to, leave a school that can prompt them to dropout. According to the National Center for Education

Statistics (NCES), in 2017 there were 2.1 million youth in the United States between the ages of

16-24 years old who were not enrolled in school and had not earned a high school credential. The national dropout rate for the United States was 15% in 2017.

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In 2017, the Hawaiʻi Department of Education reported the Hawaiʻi statewide graduation rate was 83%. In Seaside, on Oʻahu, the graduation rate was 77%. These data indicate that high school completion was difficult for 23% of youth in Seaside and 17% statewide in Hawaiʻi who dropout of school, which is higher than the national dropout rate.

Students’ interest in school is informed by their perceptions of school and the local school’s environment in the context of their wider sense of the legitimacy and trust in societal institutions and society. The controlling and punitive structure of schools have developed school climates that do not foster notions of safety or support for students. Opinions of school climate is an important factor to consider in discussions of school engagement because perceptions of their learning environment can influence student responses, behavior, and education while in school

(Bracy 2011; Peguero and Bracy: 2015). Researchers have measured students’ perceptions of school climate, particularly with regard to school justice and fairness, by assessing teens’ beliefs about school rules and discipline practices (Hong and Eamon 2012; Peguero and Bracy 2015).

They have found that implementing a positive school environment can strengthen students’ bonds to school and education resulting in positive outcomes (Bracy 2011; Kupchik 2010,2016;

Payne 2008; Peguero and Bracy 2015; Sprague, Close and Walker 2014). Furthermore, the opposite can occur with students’ bonds to school weakened in overly structured and punitive environments that are typical of schools that enforce zero-tolerance policies (Bracy 2011;

Kupchik 2010,2016; Payne 2008; Peguero and Bracy 2015). Students who view school rules and discipline as unfair, unjust, and a threat to their safety, have a weakened bond to their education, difficulties with educational progress, and increases in misconduct or behavioral issues (Bracy

2011; Kupchik 2010,2016; Payne 2008; Peguero and Bracy 2015). Thus, students can feel

123 alienated from school resulting in different forms of school disengagement and for some, entry into the institutional maze.

Youth in this study were pushed out of the education system through direct arrests and indirect processes. This chapter focuses on the different mechanisms and processes that resulted in school disengagement. These include punitive forms of punishment and control, curricula that was distant or inapplicable and not culturally relevant, and students feeling uncomfortable at school because of limited support and experiences with racism and discrimination. The intent of this chapter is to not focus on the deviant behavior of youth, but to bring attention to youth agency amongst the structural contexts that make attending school in Hawaiʻi difficult for teens.

This chapter also addresses the relationship of schools to the institutional maze. Against a backdrop of structural inequalities established through colonialism, teens in the study struggled to engage in school amidst alienating climates and conditions. This chapter draws from data collected from interviews with youth at Seaside High School, justice-involved youth, adults who had experiences in the juvenile justice system as adolescents, and community stakeholders.

I begin this chapter by discussing racialized punishment and control in Hawaiʻi public schools. I examine the experiences youth in this study had with racism at school, either from peers, adults, or presented in the curriculum. Teens discussed their frustration with the lack of

Hawaiian history taught at school and the culturally insensitive curriculum. In addition, students shared experiences of racism at school that ranged from micro-aggressions to blatant and violent incidences. The discomfort and trauma that resulted from these experiences created an uncomfortable school environment for teens in this study.

I go on to analyze youth narratives about thier experiences with unstable forms of support at school that made attending school and achieving educational goals challenging. The negative

124 experiences students had with teachers pushed some students away from seeking supportive adults at school and they described feeling discouraged and uncomfortable in the classroom and on campus. I continue this discussion by examining youth experiences with zero-tolerance policies and practices in Hawaiʻi public schools, particularly ACT 90 suspensions. I conclude this chapter by examining the educational experiences of youth with mental health diagnoses and disabilities. Teens in this study were forthcoming with sharing their diagnosees and discussing their experiences with support services, such as mental health providers and school counselors.

Hawaiʻi youth and racialized punishment and control in public schools

As mentioned above, there were multiple ways that students in this study were pushed out of school or experienced disengagement. For some students this included not feeling comfortable in the classroom or being uncomfortable with asking teachers for help. For others, it was a result of behavioral issues or incidences that led to suspensions. Almost all youth in this study experienced some form of disengagement. Of 35 youth participants and eight adults reflecting on their experiences with juvenile justice, there were 11 who were suspended for various lengths of time from public middle or high school, and six who dropped out from public high school. From this group of participants, there were four youth who had left school and either earned a GED or were planning to obtain their GED rather than obtaining a traditional high school diploma.

Scholars have noted the importance of creating a safe and comfortable school climate, particularly a culturally inclusive one (Bowen and Bowen 1999; Tanner-Smith and Fisher 2016).

Students who feel safe at school perform better academically, have better attendance, and have fewer incidences of misconduct in the classroom (Bowen and Bowen 1999; Tanner-Smith and

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Fisher 2016). Harsh punishments contribute to student discomfort at school and can significantly disrupt a students’ educational achievements and attainments.

Reproduction of social inequalities was also evident in parents’ abilities to advocate for their children based on their social capital (Kupchik 2009). Kupchik’s (2009) study showed the reproduction of class and power stratification in schools was apparent in students and parents’ self-perceptions; they described feeling inadequate in their ability to advocate for themselves or their children against school administrators which was due to their limited social capital.

Kupchik (2009:300) found that, “students in the schools with more middle-class white students have greater power to appeal their punishments.” It was also evident that the increased criminalization and disproportionate distribution of punishment impacted students differently, based on their race, gender, sexuality, and class. “When punishments are disproportionately distributed among students, not only does this impact their academic progress and achievements, but further enforces school’s reproduction of social inequalities” (King, Rusoja, and Peguero

2018:276).

Youth criminalization is particularly evident in Hawai‘i’s educational system due to the significant role colonization has played (Irwin and Umemoto 2016). Western schools were constructed, controlled, and taught by American missionaries in Hawai‘i to transmit their cultural beliefs in order to reproduce class and power relations (Okihiro 2008). Part of this process included criminalizing Native Hawaiian cultural practices, such as speaking or teaching the

Hawaiian language and hula dancing.

The disconnect between schools and the students’ culture is evident in the both the current and historical curriculum, particularly in its demoralization and attempted erasure of

Hawaiian history. In examining education in the Pacific Islands, Thomas and Postlethwaite

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(1984:317) have observed that, “the curricula are designed mainly to westernize Pacific peoples.” The westernizing project embedded in schools not only occurred through curriculum, but also through behavioral and academic expectations of students in the classroom that reified racist ideologies and imagery of Native Hawaiians as ‘stupid,’ ‘dumb,’ ‘lazy,’ and ‘passive.’

The colonization of Hawaiʻi constructed racialized hierarchies that put Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The “racialized social systems” and processes of racialization in Hawaiʻi have functioned as an “organizing principle of social relations” (Bonilla-Silva 1997:475). Such structural racism is a process that embeds and maintains racialized hierarchies into social relationships and institutions protecting power relations, particularly the ability to be within the proximity to power that is often associated with

ʻwhiteness.’ Okamura (2008) noted the role of education and economics as part of the colonial process to maintain a racialized hierarchy that has placed Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in oppressive conditions.

Racism and racialized control in public schools

Youth in this study expressed their frustration with the demeaning imagery of Native

Hawaiians and Hawaiian history presented at public school. There were frequent conversations about the lack of Hawaiian history taught to students on the continental U.S. and the inaccuracies taught in Hawaiʻi schools. When describing the curriculum at his high school, David an adult in his mid-30s who identified as “mixed-Asian”15 said, “There was more of a very Western

American kind of viewpoint.” David also mentioned that “We didn’t learn shit about Hawaiʻi.”

Samantha, a 14-year old Native Hawaiian student and Kanoe, a 15-year old Native Hawaiian

15 David stated he was unsure what his ethnicity was. He identified as “mixed Asian.”

127 student, discussed their irritation with the racist ideologies of Native Hawaiians taught by their history teacher at Seaside High School. Kanoe explained that she frequently argued with her history teacher:

A lot of people try to persuade me. Like, what are you talking about? Hawaiʻi is a state…They’re dumb Hawaiians. They had no electricity; they ran around naked. Like they don’t know. And I’m like no, this is it. I’ll repeat myself. Like the history teacher, we get so into it because he teaches U.S. [history]. I know a lot about Hawaiian…You’re a teacher though, but I may know a little bit more about this than you do. Maybe.

Kanoe learned much about Hawaiian history and Native Hawaiian culture from her family. Her father was politically involved in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and influenced Kanoe’s concern for politics regarding Hawaiʻi, and the Native Hawaiian community. When asked if other kids recognized the discrepancy in their history class, she stated:

They recognize it, but I don’t really think they really recognize it in like a good way…Like if you’re not really like them or if you try to stand out in like a good way, and they just kinda think like, “Oh, you’re a know-it-all” or just like, “Shut up, already. This isn’t important. This is like politics. This isn’t important” kind of thing.

Kanoe shared that silencing was something she experienced often when she voiced her opinion to her peers. Her peers’ dismissal of the importance of Native Hawaiian politics was reflective of the racialized hierarchy and stratification of power in Hawaiʻi. White “mainlanders” or haoles16 were viewed as more important than Native Hawaiians, subsequently diminishing the importance of the issues facing the Hawaiian community. Similar findings are reflected in Irwin and

16 Haole is a Hawaiian term for people who are not Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. It is a term usually used to refer to White people. The literal translation of ha-ole from Hawaiian to English is “without breathe.” The term haole can also be used to refer to anyone who is a foreigner to Hawaiʻi.

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Umemoto’s (2016:94) study; “Youth [in their study]…almost universally saw Whites, mainlanders, and the military as falling into the category of the powerful. They also viewed their own history – what many might call the history of their ethnic group – as punctuated by injustice at the hands of the powerful.”

One very clear example of the disconnection between curricula and the experience of

Native Hawaiians in this study was seen in assignments that focused on genealogy. Samantha, a

14-year old Native Hawaiian girl, who was a few years younger than Kanoe was similarly frustrated with the way Hawaiian history was taught at school. She said:

I hate when we do Hawaiian history because some people get it wrong. And I get really irritated when Hawaiian history comes apart because like I get really sad. ‘Cause what America did. Without them we wouldn’t have like…the bad things that we’ve got diabetes and all this stuff. And they took away their lands. That’s why a lot of people are mad because a lot of Hawaiian history is gone. But we’re trying to restore that now…[the history teacher] that teaches here he said that we’re from Africa. And I was like, “No we’re not…we originated from Tahiti.” But when we learn like stuff like that I get mad about that because it brings up a lot of sad stuff. Like my parents, grand…great-grand-parents and stuff like that. It’s hard to get our history together because a lot of them were adopted here and there. So, then I have to do a whole bunch of research when we have to do family stuff. And it’s like, “Oh, boy.”

The loss of family history is one of the many harms of colonialism. Teens found activities on family and genealogy engaging but emotionally overwhelming. The historical trauma of losing family, land, and culture was prominent in the challenges youth had with various activites at school. These activities included constructing family trees, holiday themed activities, or identity related projects.

On a field trip to a university on Oʻahu, Seaside students were taught about the importance of genealogy in the Native Hawaiian community. Unlike other assignments on

129 family trees the counselor’s approach at the University included genealogy from a Native

Hawaiian perspective. The presenter emphasized the genealogical connection Native Hawaiians have to their ancestral land. Native Hawaiian scholars note ,“Genealogically, we say we are descended of Papahānaumoku (Earth Mother) and Wākea (Sky father), who created our beautiful islands. From this land came the taro, and from the taro, our Hawaiian people. The lesson of our origins is that we are genealogically related to Hawaiʻi, our islands, as family” (Trask 2008: 45).

As the presenter continued with this activity, one could sense the surge of emotion in the room when the presenter announced that there were two Seaside students who he found he was related to when he had researched his genealogy. He called the students to the front of the room and explained their ancestral connection. The student who was present did not appear entirely comfortable being called to the front to have something personal disclosed publicly. The presenter was sensitive to the privacy of their family history and did not show the audience the geneological connection. He only showed the student with whom he was revealing their family connection. The Seaside counselors chaperoning the field trip recognized, that although the student was uncomfortable, they recognized the importance of this revelation to the student and agreed to pass the information along to the student who was not present at the field trip. The dissolution of family was one of the traumas of colonialism, and part of what Wolfe (2006) argues was the “elimination” of indigenous people through settler colonialism. As such, separation of family was a historical trauma youth in this study experienced and uncovering familial connections was powerful for teens to experience and witness.

In another family history activity, the counselors and I conducted an assignment that involved describing the meaning of one’s name during one of the girl’s Lunch Bunch groups.

Dolley recalled this project and said, “It made me feel bad because I didn’t have my mom tell me

130 what my first name meant to her.” During the activity, I observed that the girls who had experienced family separation or were involved in Child Protective Services (CPS) struggled. I could see the loss they felt in that moment from not having access to family members who could provide them information about a key aspect of their identity, their name. Even with the support of the other girls in the group and the counselor attempting to make the activity more inclusive by providing an option for them to discuss what their name meant to them, there was still an element of sadness and disengagement with the activity.

Family loss and separation was an aspect of colonialism designed to weaken communal bonds that maintained social, political, and cultural power and reproduction. Land, language, and family are important elements of Native Hawaiian culture (Trask 2008). The implementation of the Hawaiʻi Homes Commission Act in 1920 (also known as the Hawaiʻi Homestead Act) by the

U.S. government required blood quantum levels of 50% Native Hawaiian in order to be eligible to lease Hawaiian Homestead land. Blood quantum levels constructed a legal definition of who was Native Hawaiian and created conflict within the Hawaiian community (Kauanui 2008). This was a form of family and community division and yet another way to prevent Native Hawaiians from gaining access to Hawaiian land. The Hawaiian Homestead act and blood quantum levels reified racialized hierarchies that continue to impact the daily lives of young people in Hawaiʻi.

Students had a sense of the racialized hierarchy and racism evident in settler colonialism

(Irwin and Umemoto 2016) that made their school environment uncomfortable. Youth mentioned their discomfort with derogatory statements made about Native Hawaiians and other racial or ethnic groups on campus. Alexis, a Black 12th grader, described different experiences she had at school as an African American student in Hawaiʻi. She talked about how she felt unsafe at school after experiencing multiple forms of violence and racism:

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When I came to this school, it was hard because like I didn’t sound like I was from here I guess, which I guess is fine. But like to other people, it wasn’t. So, I would walk through the hallways, and I would get pushed into the walls really hard and I didn’t understand why…I was like, I’m from here. This is my real home. But because I didn’t sound like it’s my real home…And one time, these kids spit on me.

She also described an incident in which she witnessed one of her friends being attacked in the school parking lot by a student’s parent because he was haole. Her friend was able to transfer to another school after the incident, but Alexis was not as fortunate. School felt unsafe for her, and she said “I was terrified for like a month and a half. I didn’t come to school.”

The feeling of being uncomfortable and unsafe at school is a factor that pushes youth out of school, particularly for marginalized teens. Racial and ethnic minority students are more likely to drop out due to their exposure to violence and victimization while at school (Peguero 2011).

The racial and ethnic makeup of Hawaiʻi’s public schools form a distinct context due to its legacies of colonialism and continued occupation by the U.S (Okamura 2008). Because of its form of White settler colonialism racial and ethnic minorities that were not engaged in the plantation economy often bear the brunt of anti-colonial angst among youth. Moreover, this racism, particularly in the form of racial stereotypes was not one way from Whites to minorities, but rather cut across all racialized groups, such that there would be inter-racial conflict between different racial and ethnic groups.

This ingrained racial divide is illustrated by a racist incident experienced by Alexis that occurred in a fourth period class involving a lesson about racial stereotypes. Alexis was not a student in the class but would like to sit in on it as she liked the teacher and did not have a class during fourth period clearly demonstrating engagement with learning beyond what was required.

On the day of the incident, the teacher asked students to list stereotypes about different racial

132 groups on the classroom white board. Alexis noticed that the list under Blacks was very long and full of racist comments like, “good athletes,” “cotton-pickers,” drug dealers,” “rapist,” “gang- bangers,” “don’t know how to raise their kids.” Alexis became increasingly upset as the activity continued and confronted the students in the class. When describing the incident, she said:

I’m like reading all this, and I’m sitting here, and I’m just like… This is scary… And like it hurt to see that about Black people and when like people are putting under Micronesians like roaches, like cockroaches. And I was like, “Where the hell do you get these things from? Yeah and these Hawaiians they had all good things. So, I got in front of the class, and I was like, “Um, everybody shut up”…And they all looked at me, and I was like, “I want to talk… is this what you really think?”…And they’re like, “Well, yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.” And Caucasian, they were like, “Make a lot of money.” Um, “popular”… “cheerleaders”… “Racist” and that’s about it. And I was like, “Okay, is this what you really think about the Micronesians?” And even Micronesian girls were writing down things like that, the negative things in Micronesian. And I looked at her, and I was like, “Is that what you really think?” She was like, “No, but it’s what I hear every day.” And I was like, “Okay.” And then, I go to the Hawaiian ones, and it’s all good things. You know it’s all the local kids here…And then, I’m looking at this, and I’m just like, “Um, do you want me to write down some things on here? They’re like, “yeah, uh, go ahead and…” I erased all of it. I erased all, everything under the Hawaiians, and I was like “disrespectful.” And I heard people get upset, and I was like, “lazy.” More people got upset. I was like, “alcoholic.” People were getting pissed. I was like, “oh, is that making you upset?” They were like, “Yeah, that’s a freakin’ lie. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.” And I walked over to the Black card, and I was like, “How do you think this makes me feel being an African-American woman? Look at that, and how do you think that makes me feel?” They were like, “Well that’s what we hear now.” And I was like, “I don’t care. That is so disrespectful.”

When asked how the teacher responded, Alexis said, “She was sitting there…didn’t do anything…she freakin’ didn’t do anything and I was ready to punch her in her face.” Alexis said she did not feel supported by the teacher. She also mentioned that following this incident other students, “won’t look me in the eye.” Alexis felt that the activity demonstrated to her “the lack of

133 knowledge of different races” and that even with ethnic studies classes on campus, Alexis felt that students were learning “absolutely nothing about different races.”

Counselors at Seaside High School discussed the negative stereotypes and reputations of schools that served students from certain areas of Northward, particularly youth who lived in low-income areas or on Hawaiian homestead land. Ms. Phillips, a Native Hawaiian counselor at

Seaside High School, mentioned how the demographics and the reputation of the school had changed over the many years that she had worked there. “We used to be a school that was mostly brown,” she said, but the school now had “lighter color faces in the crowd.” She felt it was in part because “it’s just too expensive to send your kids to private schools.” She had seen “parents in tears with their kids, like we can’t afford the tuition [for private schools] are they gonna be okay here? And they’re [the students] fine.” When asked why parents were concerned about their child’s safety at Seaside High School, Ms. Phillips said:

I think it’s just the dynamic of Hawaiʻi just being so segregated. I mean, people say “oh we’re such a nice melting pot.” But we’re not. You know, if you look at the way just Northward is segregated and half of Northward goes to [a different school] and the other half comes to us…those are the poor communities…So we [Seaside High School] got like the poorest sections of Northward…those are our kids.

She said that Seaside High School was viewed as a “rougher school” by other schools in

Northward and felt that reputation was connected to the “socioeconomic background” or “maybe because of our [school’s] ethnicity. We have the most, like half of our students are part

Hawaiian.” However, despite the racialized stereotypes of Seaside High School, Ms. Phillips did not feel that their students experienced discrimination or racism within the actual school itself, contrary to students’ experiences such as Alexis’ noted above. “They stay within their communities,” Ms. Phillips explained. Seaside High School for the most part remained a safe

134 space for youth as most of the adults working within the school were culturally sensitive and practiced a non-judgmental approach to youth. However, as illustrated above, students did not necessarily share the same perspective and had experiences of racism and cultural insensitivity. It is this racial and ethnic segregation and racialized negative stereotyping, a legacy of colonialism, that makes those most hurt by the experience find the environment hostile to learning, and that leads to their alienation and subsequent disengagement. Students on a disengagement pathway should be engaged by school counselors and support staff to address and reverse their potential separation from schools, but for reasons discussed below, that intervention is not effective.

Unstable support at school

Unstable support services within education and the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi typically led youth further into the institutional maze, rather than protect them from it. Unstable support at school was a combination of not enough resources available to provide adequate assistance, and youth feeling ambivalent about support services. Some teens found certain individuals and services as helpful, while others completely rejected assistance from school counselors and other interventions. They rejected assistance because they felt their challenges or issues were not being heard or were ignored, they felt it was a waste of time, it was not culturally relevant, or support services felt intrusive and forced. Elijah, a Samoan boy on probation, for example, repeatedly mentioned how he found going to the school counseling office and speaking with counselors “a waste of time.” He felt they would repeat the same message over and over to him and speak to him like he was “dumb.” When youth experienced negative feedback such as this, it would lead to a further erosion of trust in the institution,

135 particularly for those youths who were ignored by adults they felt should have cared and protected them.

Youth struggled with feeling they did not have enough time to do their work and felt teachers did not understand the hardships and responsibilities they faced at home. Youth stated they would shut down and disengage with course material by sitting quietly in class or simply leaving class out of frustration or feeling ignored by the teacher. For example, when he felt he did not have enough time to do his work, Scott, a White Seaside High School boy, said he would,

“tend to shut down and not do anything.” Samantha, a Native Hawaiian ninth grade girl, said, “I had some hardships because like classes and stuff…some teachers they don't explain like a lot.

They'll explain it to the whole class, but you won't get it…And getting time on your hands [to do your work] is the hard part.” She went on to describe teachers who were understanding of students’ adversities and said,

I really like them. They’re…I get to talk to them more. Like once I don’t understand, I don’t really talk…I’m quiet in class. But then when I understand and get what the students or what everyone has, I actually talk in class and participate.

Some students, such as Ella, a 17-year old Micronesian girl, and Marko, a Filipino boy, mentioned they would leave school for the day. Ella said that schoolwork was “hard,” and if she got “bored, I just leave.” If she was having a bad day at school or did not understand the course material, Ella would ask to go to the bathroom and not return to class. She said she would “jump the fence” and leave school for the day. Ella described a bad day at school as, “Just sitting down and looking at the teacher and not knowing what’s going on…I would just feel mad all the time.”

Ella dropped out after repeating ninth grade twice and failing both times. She was on probation, and her probation officer made her go to an alternative school, which is a school that has

136 nontraditional teaching methods and curriculum designed to accommodate students who are at- risk of failing out of school, experiencing social or behavioral problems, or require a non- traditional program17. However, Ella was so behind with her high school credits that an alternative school was not a good fit for her either. She eventually obtained her GED while she attended a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program.

While Ella would leave school without permission, Marko would go to school security, or to the office and call his parents to get a pass to go home, something which his parents would grant. Some may question why a parent would excuse their child from school for reasons other than illness or an emergency, but Marko and his family were immigrants from the Philippines.

Research has highlighted the ways attendance policies undermine the realities of immigrant families and disregard the different practices of culture, language, literacy, and documentation status that marginalized families experience everyday (Campano et al. 2013; Pantoja 2013).

Education is an important aspect of development for many immigrant families. However, differences in social and cultural capital make it difficult for some immigrant parents to feel they can advocate on the behalf of their child if their child is experiencing challenges in school. This is especially important given the microaggressions immigrant parents and students experience that exclude them from the school community (Jimenz-Castellanos and González 2012; Pantoja

2013). Marko did not disclose the reason his parents let him come home from school early, only that they allowed him to leave school if he called and asked.

17 My use of the term ‘non-traditional’ refers to educational programs that are based in Western approaches to education and curriculum that are viewed as ‘traditional’ or ‘non-traditional’ according to Western cultural standards. This does not refer to the differences between Western educational systems and indigenous ways of knowledge.

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Some teens in this study had bad experiences with teachers that also resulted in them developing or intensifying negative feelings towards school. There were times when Marko did not feel comfortable at school and did not want to seek assistance from teachers. When asked why he was nervous or scared to ask for help, he said, “'Cause they might yell at us when you ask them something.” Marko went on to describe an incident in middle school of being yelled at by a teacher when he went to ask a question. He said his teacher, “Started yelling, ‘Go back to your seat right now!’” Marko said it made him want to move schools and not return to school.

Youth also did not feel comfortable seeking help from teachers who showed favoritism to certain students. For example, Samantha, a Native Hawaiian ninth grader, described how favoritism by teachers deterred her from engaging in class or asking for assistance, especially because she did not feel she was a favorite. She said she did not like favoritism “because then [teachers] wouldn’t really talk to another half of the class.” Also, like Marko, Samantha was yelled at by a teacher and described the experience,

Okay, so it was May Day and like I always get yelled at [by] Kumu [teacher] for, you know, stop talking. But then like I get a little bit irritated ‘cause…this one time we were practicing for May Day singing. And then I wrote out my words. I wasn’t the only one who had my words out. And then she scolded me. I was like, “Oh.” Which was bad because like I know she has her favorites…she wouldn’t talk to them, but then she’ll talk to me about something. It’s like, “Wait. Why didn’t you scold them?” And then I’ll be irritated.

Feeling unsupported and receiving negative messages from teachers was another way teens were pushed out of school. For some youth, the intensified hardships they were experiencing in school and at home also fostered additional deviance.

Trisha, a Native Hawaiian Seaside High School girl, explained that she had moments in middle school where she felt adults who should have been there for her, ignored her when she

138 needed their help. Trisha described an incident in middle school when she was being teased by a boy in her class who would not stop, regardless of how many times Trisha had asked him to leave her alone. She explained how she “ended up flying scissors at a boy’s eye…he was teasing me, and I asked him to stop but he didn’t. And, like the teacher was sitting right there, and I’m like, you’re not doing anything. Are you serious!” Trisha was punished for this incident and was referred to counseling for anger management, while the boy who had teased her received no consequences for his persistent bullying. Unlike her middle school, at Seaside High School,

Trisha had a trusted school counselor, Ms. Phillips, who she could turn to reliably. Having a stable supportive adult such as Ms. Phillips was a relief to Trisha after her experience in middle school.

As was the case with Trisha’s idle school experience, teens did not always find support from adults at school. Students who did not feel protected by school officials but rather were criminalized for their safety seeking behaviors would often develop a distrust of adult school personnel, such as staff, teachers, or counselors, and instead relied on peer friendships for encouragement and support.

Cultivating friendships and getting along with peers were important alternative supports for adolescents, and which they valued. Teens found talking to friends as helpful, more so than therapists or counselors, and struggled when they felt they did not have a friend to turn to.

Alexis, for example, said:

It’s really hard to be strong for everybody else and try to keep it together when like you don’t have anybody to go to. It’s super hard, like I can barely make it through the week sometimes. But, when I’m by myself – if I’m by myself, I go home.

However, these alternative support networks were not evenly distributed. There were some teens in this study who struggled with building and maintaining friendships, or generally

139 socializing with their peers. Some also felt judged or betrayed by friends, which increased conflict among peers and, at times, resulted in teens’ lack of interest in attending school, especially if they were not receiving support from teachers or school staff.

The inability to establish close and trusted friendships with their peers made some youth feel flawed. Becky, a White Seaside High School student, for example, struggled with relating to her peers and said, “I can’t read people…I don’t know what people think about me or the things that I do.” She felt that people were always staring at her, and that it was because she was doing something wrong. When asked if she would feel differently if she knew what people were thinking, she replied, “Yes, because then I could know what I’m doing wrong! It drives me crazy thinking about what I’m doing wrong unless I know.” Jericho also expressed that starting high school with students he knew from intermediate would have been easier if he “got along with them.” When asked about friendships at school, he said, “I mean, I don’t even have friends at this school right now.” Jericho had a hard time attending school and said, “At the beginning it was alright… I don't know. I don't really feel like going to school today.”

Ricky, a Mexican teen on probation, also had challenges with friendships at school that were upsetting to him. He felt he felt his friends treated him differently after he was arrested and was put on house arrest. Ricky explained that he believed his peers and family viewed him and treated him as though he was a ‘criminal.’ The change in his relationships with his friends left him feeling alone and unsupported. Around the time of the interview for this study, he was experiencing “drama” with his friends who had believed a rumor circulating around school that

Ricky had cheated on his girlfriend. Ricky denied cheating on his girlfriend and claimed the rumor was a lie. His girlfriend still broke up with him anyway, and he was also confronted by a close friend about the alleged incident. He described the confrontation as follows:

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One of my really good friends actually came up to me and during, during recess. This was when I still felt comfortable around them. He came up to me and was like what the hell’s your problem?! Like why would you ever do something like that?! And I was like, what are you talking about, dude? Like, nothing happened. I swear. Why would I do anything like that. I have no reason to do that. And then, it was just, it just blew my mind because he just didn’t believe me…It just hurts, you know. When your close friends are saying that to you.

Ricky continued to describe how hurt he felt from the confrontation and the mistrust shown to him, and how it paralyzed him:

Like, in that moment I felt locked up. And I just felt…shocked and I didn’t want to move from my exact spot. And like the bell rang and I was, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t say anything, and my friends were talking to me, and I just couldn’t answer to them. Or else I would have just started breaking out crying. And then I walked to, I walked to the counselor’s office, and I tried to talk to her in there. Like she was either talking to somebody, or like she wasn’t there but, I just sat down in there and was sitting alone, and I just like couldn’t stop balling.

He described feeling so alone that day and felt abandoned by his friends and the school counselor. He recognized his counselor was busy that day but described feeling “lost” and did not want to go back to class. Ricky started feeling “depressed in school” and avoiding his group of friends after being confronted that day. He said he felt his friends judged him, and that they were no longer supportive. His social network shrunk after that incident, and he had fewer friends. Losing a supportive group of friends was challenging for Ricky, especially because he already felt judged and criminalized at home by his family. It made school an uncomfortable environment for him and decreased his interest and motivation to attend school and complete his schoolwork. He said at “school I walk the separate paths to my classes specifically to avoid my friends. I don’t sit with them at lunch. At recess, I don’t, I don’t hang out at the normal spot. Like

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I just, I just go to my next class and after school I just walk straight home.” Institutional and social support were important for Ricky to feel safe at school. Without support, he struggled as he navigated through the institutional maze.

However, when youth lose that support or experience unstable support, it would result in disengagement. For example, when he reflected on his experience in school, not only was David, a mid-30s mixed Asian, “bored in school” but he felt stigmatized by his teachers and frequently received messages that he was “wasting his potential.” With the hardships at home and feeling he was viewed as a failure at school, he began using drugs and alcohol as an “escape.” He recalled missing school frequently and being arrested off campus for truancy. He would be brought to campus in a police car and escorted through campus in front of his peers by a police officer while in handcuffs. He said it was embarrassing and deepened his reputation of being “trouble.”

David’s drug use intensified his school disengagement, resulting in an arrest at school for marijuana possession and a 90-day suspension under Act 90. Punitive policies such as suspensions form the foundations of zero-tolerance in school settings and are an active point of entry into the institutional maze of juvenile justice.

Zero-tolerance and punitive policies and practices

One of the foundations of zero-tolerance applied in the educational context is school exclusion through harsh punishments such as suspensions and expulsions (Skiba and Peterson

1999; King et al. 2018). Suspension is one of the tools used to push out students who are seen as

“troublemakers or those perceived as unlikely to succeed in school” (Skiba and Peterson

1999:376). There were other mechanisms used to remove students from campus such as Act 90.

Act 90 was a Hawaiʻi state-wide legislative act that required the mandatory suspension of

142 students for 90 days if they brought drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or weapons on school campuses.

Students suspended under ACT 90 were not allowed to return to school until the 90 day period was completed. They were expected to continue their education and complete their school work by either attending an alternative school or having teachers send work to students to complete at home. Under Act 90 students could be arreseted on campus.

Youth in this study experienced different forms of school punishment ranging from detention to being arrested at school. The criminalization of student behavior in this study occurred on O‘ahu where there were no school resource officers (SRO) stationed on school campuses18. Zero-tolerance policies such as Act 90 took away any discretion of school administrators as well as possibilities of students simply making mistakes. By arresting students, schools exposed youth to the criminal justice system, or for youth already in the juvenile justice system, complicated their case and added additional roadblocks for them to overcome, thereby closing off exits to get out of the maze. Experiences of arrest and suspension furthered youth’s school disengagement and deepended their dislike for school and confirmed deviant or criminal labels as their master status.

Gender also seemed to be a factor in determining whether a student would be subjected to punishment. While girls in this study experienced school punishment and disengagement, those who experienced suspensions or arrests at school were not suspended for substance use and/or possession. There was one girl in this study who was arrested at school for writing a threatening message on a school bathroom wall, and one girl who received detention for a dress code violation. Ella, for example, mentioned she had been caught multiple times smoking cigarettes in

18 The state of Hawaiʻi was no exception to the increased presence of police officers on school campuses but the proliferation rate was different on each island. The island of Hawaiʻi and Maui had SROs in schools, however, Oʻahu did not. Even without police officers stationed on Oʻahu campuses, schools would call police to arrest students, as they could still arrest or suspend students under zero-tolerance policies, particularly Act 90.

143 the bathroom at school but was never suspended for it. She said, “I would get caught and they would just tell me like, don’t do that.” Smoking cigarettes on school grounds was a violation of zero-tolerance policies, and she technically could have been suspended. In contrast, Ella, a 17- year old Micronesian girl, did struggle with substance abuse and was arrested numerous times from age 12-17 for drug related offenses. However, according to Ella, none of these arrests occurred at school. In comparison to girls, there were five boys in this study who had experienced an arrest at school under the Act 90 policy as punishment for substance use or possession, and one boy for fighting.

In middle school, Elijah, a Samoan boy on probation, was arrested on campus for possessing marijuana and was suspended for 90 days. When he described his arrest at school, he said, “I don’t even understand why they arrested me. I mean, I know it was an illegal drug…They could have just walked me to a [police] car. Not like handcuff me and have the cops roll up like I was a murderer.” He said he was arrested in front of his peers at school and that it was “embarrassing.” Dylan, a 17-year old Japanese boy on probation, also recalled being arrested at school and being escorted to the police car in handcuffs in front of students and faculty. For Dylan, this was not his first encounter with police and being handcuffed in front of his peers at school. He mentioned that he had truancy issues and had been arrested off campus on numerous occasions and was returned to campus by police officers who escorted him to the school office in handcuffs. Over time, he became desensitized to this process of criminalization.

These public acts of humiliation by law enforcement on school grounds not only criminalized students but was an attempt to make an example out of these students to deter other students from rule breaking.

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Dylan dropped out of school after his second Act 90 suspension. Indeed, scholars have noted that students who are suspended or expelled under zero-tolerance policies are more likely to drop out of school (Bowditch 1993; DeRidder 1990; Insley 2001). This demonstrates that zero-tolerance policies are ineffective for addressing behaviors and keeping students in school but effective in pushing students out of school and labeling them as ‘criminal’ or ‘undesirable,’ calling into question the purpose of policies such as Act 90.

How students perceive the punishment and make meaning from it also plays a part in their reaction to such policies. Perception of fairness of punishment varied for teens given harsh consequences. Some felt they deserved the punishment they received, while others felt it was too harsh and unnecessary. Students who do not view school rules and policies as equitable or administered evenly are less inclined to follow them (Kupchik 2010). Some youth in this study felt certain punishments like school suspensions were disproportionate to the offense and believed there were more effective forms of punishment. Eli, a Micronesian boy on probation, was one such youth who was suspended in ninth grade for 45 days for being drunk at school and harassing girls. When he described the incident, he said, “They thought that I was harassing the girls, but I was just talking to them…in the bathroom.” He felt a better punishment would have been, “Do a time out or something…like on punishment, like cutting grass…so they can sober up after that.” Eli said that his suspension made him not want to go to school anymore and he eventually dropped out.

At its core, punishment is about power and control. Harsh punitive policies such as zero- tolerance that push students out of school rather than supporting an educative environment for all students, may have more to do with the image of ‘being tough on crime’ than the actual effects of the policy on correcting student behavior or constructing a safe campus climate (Skiba and

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Peterson 1999). Reactive punishments appear to have the intention of changing behavior, yet scholars argue that their latent function is the reassertion of power and control of institutions and authority figures (Skiba and Peterson 1999).

With the expansion and reliance on zero-tolerance policies, there is mounting evidence indicating that such policies are ineffective for reducing misbehavior and instead alienates students and exacerbates delinquency (Adams 2000; Insley 2001; Mayer and Leone 1999;

Shores, Gunter, and Jack 1993). As noted by Skiba and Peterson (1999:376), “suspension may simply accelerate the course of delinquency by giving a troubled youth with little parental supervision a few extra days to ‘hang’ with deviant peers.” Some harsh punishment policies did not account for other factors that made attending school challenging for teens, such as mental health or special needs, and further alienated youth who needed additional support.

Mental Health and Disabilities

Some harsh punishment policies did not account for other factors that made attending school challenging for teens, such as mental health and disabilities, and which further alienated youth who needed additional support. There were 15 teens and one college student in this study who disclosed mental health diagnoses or special education disabilities. Youth participants were very open about their experiences with support services used in and out of school to address their mental health needs. They were often reflective about institutional practices such as counseling.

While some youth rejected interventions and support services at school as they did not find them helpful, others found the services to be useful.

One such student who benefited from institutional services was Becky. Becky, a White

Seaside High School girl, was diagnosed with autism as a young child and had learned through

146 her support services how to assert herself and set boundaries when she did not feel comfortable.

One of her challenges at school involved classroom conversation and relating to her peers. She was often very honest in her speech and at times would speak out of turn, violating conversation norms. She described her peers’ and teachers’ attempts at censoring her and said, “They start telling me to shut-up. Every single person in my third period, including the teacher sometimes.

The kids tell me to shut-up. The teacher kinda just shuts me up with conversation.” She explained that when this would occur, she would tell them to “stop silencing me.” Over the four years that she participated in the girls Lunch Bunch group, I was able to observe an improvement in her social skills and her ability to communicate her needs and feelings to others. Becky also did not like being touched, especially hugged, and learned through therapy that it was appropriate to set boundaries by letting people know not to hug her. One such example occurred after the Lunch Bunch group had ended and the girls were leaving to go to class. It happened to be my birthday that day, and I had brought cupcakes to the girl’s group. Afterwards, Becky came up to me to thank me for the cupcakes and to wish me a happy birthday. I thanked her and asked her if I could give her a hug. She said, “No, I don’t like people touching me. But I’ll shake your hand.” I smiled as I shook her hand. Becky’s case indicates the difference in her reaction to a positive, supportive environment than to one that is reactive, disciplinary, and punitive. With support she flourishes; with control she deepens her likelihood of entering the maze. This can even be true for more seeming therapeutic interventions.

For example, while Becky benefitted from institutional support, she found the label of diagnoses to be limiting. When asked what she thought about terms such as ADHD and Autism, she responded, “Well, I know what they are. But, I think they’re things that make it harder for me to do all the things I’d like to be able to do. I guess kinda like a roadblock on the path of

147 success,” in other words, a blocked exit rather than gateways out of the maze. Teens in this study with mental health diagnoses found their diagnoses limiting and stigmatizing when place in categories that resulted in feeling like they did not fit in at school. Alexis, for example, was diagnosed with a mental health condition and started taking medication when she was in seventh grade. She described her struggle to feel motivated and attributed this to her medication. She said, “It’s because of medication that I’m on [that] makes it so like I really can’t. Like I don’t like to get out of bed half of the time, and when I wake up in the morning, I’m always late to school because it takes everything in my body to get up out of bed.” There were some diagnoses and experiences that she was not shy about discussing, such as her previously having been a

“cutter19,” but there were some labels that she preferred to keep private. During an interview a few weeks before graduating high school, Alexis disclosed, “I’ve recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I’m tired of like finding out there’s another thing wrong with me.

It’s just very frustrating, because personality disorders have such a stigma. Like, ‘Oh, you have a personality disorder, okay, you’re officially a psycho.’” Fortunately for Becky and Alexis, they had support from home, mental health providers, and their school, which assisted in them successfully graduating high school.

Having a safe and supportive place at school was also important for youth who had mental health diagnoses or were differently abled. Dolley, a Native Hawaiian Seaside High

School girl, was a foster youth who had cognitive disabilities. She found the support at school, particularly the counseling office and the Lunch Bunch girl’s group, to be safe spaces that felt

“like a family” and made her “feel happy and I love smiling every day.” Dolley said she loved

19 A cutter is someone who engages in a form of self-harm by making small, superficial cuts on their body to relieve stress and pain.

148 school and “I would die not going to school.” When asked what she liked about school, she mentioned how one of her classes would help her:

It makes me feel occupied and I can do stuff. But when it comes to home, I don’t like staying home… It, it just made me feel happy that everybody like is communicating instead of you know, putting a wall in front of you and telling you not to talk to me. Like every time, sometimes when I’m at home it feels like there’s a wall in front of me and everybody else is like walking past the wall.

Feeling heard and seen was important for Dolley who had alluded to being ridiculed in the past at home and from peers at school:

A lot of people think that, that I’m different and stuff. But, to tell you the truth, I am, and I love being different. Like, you know? Because I have…like people that are selfish and so absurd always tease other people with disabilities, like you’re retarded and what does that...you’re not worth it in this world. And to get away and get out of my sight. You know what I have to say for those people? Shame on them. Shame on them because – we’re all same people, this is where we all live in. God created us for a reason and it’s to fulfill your dreams, not – to have someone tell you what to do, and then crush it because how would you like it if it was the opposite way around… And, I just breathe in that I have, what is that? That I do have, like, you know, because, honestly, it’s hard for me to read sometimes and it’s hard for me to comprehend. But you know what –I love being this way. Because look at where it changed me now.

Jericho, a mixed Asian boy, was another teen in this study who had cognitive disabilities and attended the boys’ Lunch Bunch group at Seaside High School. He expressed some challenges at school, particularly with teachers. When asked if he felt comfortable with any teachers, he said “No.” However, he did find the school counselors as safe and supportive adults that he felt comfortable being around and could talk to if he was having a bad day. He also enjoyed attending the Lunch Bunch boys’ group, as it was an opportunity for him to socialize with other students at school, which in other contexts on campus was a challenge for him.

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The youth discussed in this section found that institutional and social support could make schools safer and a more engaging and comfortable environment. Nonetheless, the youth expressed a level of skepticism and ambivalence regarding the support services and programming available to them for a variety of reasons.

Conclusion

This chapter began by looking at the larger structural inequalities that have established alienating school climates for youth in Hawaiʻi. Youth in this study had a range of experiences with school disengagement. Study participants who were arrested on campus and suspended missed a significant amount of time at school and were subject to public stigma and shaming.

This led to some youth dropping out of school, while others attended an alternative school and had difficulties returning to their traditional high school. Overall, youth in this study appeared to have a different relationship to education after their suspensions. For some this solidified their dislike and disengagement with school. In Morris’s (2016) study of school disengagement argued, “Those who are pushed to the margins are often rendered too powerless to manage a clear vision of what a truly inclusive learning environment even looks like, let alone how they might participate in ways that support their well-being as learners…and as negotiators of their own destiny” (Morris 2016:174). Being pushed out of school and being labeled as ‘trouble’ furthers youth’s disengagement. Other youth continued to attend school but felt uncomfortable or had difficulty finding motivation to attend and participate in classes. For youth who were not pushed out of school by suspension or expulsion, their disengagement with school was in the form of discomfort with the campus environment, challenges with engaging in culturally demeaning curriculum and fighting racialized hierarchal structures. As noted by Smyth

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(2006:285), “When students feel that their lives, experiences, cultures, and aspirations are ignored, trivialized, or denigrated, they develop a hostility to the institution of schooling.”

When students experienced school disengagement they became more susceptible to institutional interventions and control, including juvenile justice interventions. The multiple ways students were pushed out of school were entries into the institutional maze. While some found support and were able to strengthen their engagement with school, others struggled with unstable support and found it difficult to navigate through the institutional maze. What also made school difficult for some youth was their ability to find or located themselves among the construction of gendered and criminalized labels. In the next chapter I provide a detailed articulation of the institutional maze by providing a description of visible entry points, like pathways, and the maze-like difficulty for teens to exit the juvenile justice maze.

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CHAPTER 5. THE INSTITUTIONAL MAZE

“Alas,” said the mouse, “the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run.”

“But you’ve only got to run the other way,” said the cat, and ate it. - Frantz Kafka, “A Little Fable”

Teenagers who engage in deviant behavior or delinquency are often told they are heading in the wrong direction by adults and institutional or authority figures, and if they change their course or behavior, their life will improve. Unfortunately, like the mouse in Kafka’s story, youth who enter the institutional maze can feel as if the walls are caving in around them, and some are eventually swallowed up by the criminal justice system. The difference between Kafka’s story and the institutional maze is that Kafka’s story is a fable that is three sentences long, while the institutional maze is a much longer journey that can have real-life consequences, sometimes

“life-ruining” consequences for youth. There are youth that are fortunate enough by luck or privilege to escape the maze, and there are youth that despite many chances or attempts to “make good choices” or “do the right thing,” are never able to fully escape institutional control.

In chapter one, I introduced the analogy of the institutional maze that has been used by some to describe the juvenile justice system both as “a complex maze with many points of entry”

(Kids Forward 2018: 1), and as having “uncoordinated plans and goals for youth” within its facilities (U.S. DOJ 2009: 24). Moreover, “navigating the maze-like-system is difficult and finding a point of exit is even more difficult. The complexities of the juvenile justice system and the biases that exist within the system are preventing many children… from thriving – particularly children of color” (Kids Forward 2018:1). In this chapter, I argue that the connection

152 of different youth institutions of control and the interventions that partner with these institutions, function as an institutional maze that is complex and at times random. The connection of schools and jails are only part of the complex process of youth punishment, with schools as both integral, but also on the periphery functioning to mirror the juvenile justice system. There are different mechanisms and control processes that make it more random. Thus, a more multidimensional analysis of youth control and punishment, as afforded by the maze analogy, is important in order to understand the complexities of systems of punishment and control and their effect on the lives of youth.

A more multidimensional analysis of youth punishment is important to understand the complexities of systems of punishment and control and their effects on the lives of teenagers.

There are many dimensions at play in the course of youth punishment and control, particularly for marginalized youth. The connection schools and jails is only one aspect in the process of youth punishment, with schools as both an integral part of the course but also on the periphery, functioning as a lever or an aid to the juvenile justice system. There are other conditions such as those reviewed in previous chapters including, child welfare, colonialism, gender, race, indigeneity, and families struggling within this context, that add to the dimensions of the youth punishment and control process, making it less circular or linear, and more random and complicated.

The complexity of the institutions of control that youth encounter can be overwhelming, confusing, and difficult to navigate successfully. The institutional maze demonstrates that punishment “should be seen not as a singular kind of event or relationship but rather as a social institution which, by definition, entails a kind of complexity of structure and density…” (Garland

1990:282). Mazes are complex systems of different pathways, with twists and turns, the goal of

153 which is to find the exit route. This often involves making the wrong turn, retracing your steps, and choosing a different path. Mazes can be frightening and confusing as it is easy to get lost and frustrated, especially if you have made repeated attempts to find the way out and have yet to be successful. In this chapter, I discuss how the connection of different institutions of youth control and interventions function as an institutional maze, not a straight or circular pathway, but one that is much more complex, and at times random.

The institutional maze

The institutional maze itself is the intersection of different youth institutions that are designed to intervene when youth are wayward or perceived as such. Institutions that are part of the maze include schools, juvenile justice, mental health, and child protective services.

Additionally, the institutional maze is comprised of various types of interventions that are both punitive and supportive in nature and design. Supportive interventions were significant components in the institutional maze that provided assistance for some youth while posing additional hardships for other youth. Assistive interventions were support-based and attempted to provide guidance, mentorship, expressive outlets, and therapy. Care included providing safe spaces with non-judgmental adults that youth felt comfortable turning to when they needed support.

Institutional interventions were punitive and designed to be unpleasant in order to deter teens from engaging in deviant and/or criminal behavior. These punitive interventions included school suspensions, school expulsions, school detentions, arrest, criminal justice detention, incarceration, court-mandated diversion programs such as Hawaiʻi Youth Challenge Academy20,

20 The Hawaiʻi Youth Challenge Academy is a community-based intervention program for at-risk youth ages 16-18 years old. The Hawaiʻi Youth Challenge is a 22-week residential program that offers a year-long mentorship after

154 drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and probation. For the most part, institutional interventions were an attempt to disrupt negative behaviors and paths towards further delinquency, and instead redirect youth towards ‘good choices’ or pathways leading toward positive outcomes such as high school graduation, or sobriety. Unfortunately, as this study demonstrates, these institutional interventions often created additional challenges that intensified teens’ hardships or made it more difficult for them to find a way out of the maze.

The institutional maze had multiple points of entry for teens in the study. Contact with agents of social control that policed youth behavior such as adults at school, teachers, parents, social workers, mental health providers, and police determined whether a youth would enter the maze. Out of 43 participants in the study21, there were 21 participants who had experienced the maze in one way or another as youth. However, 22 of the participants only lingered on the periphery without fully entering the maze. Youth who avoided agents of social control and the maze engaged in deviant behaviors but evaded the maze simply because they were not caught.

While there were similarities in the experiences in the maze, each teen had a different journey. Once youth entered the maze, there were multiple options that could be presented to

‘correct’ the teen’s behavior. The community stakeholders within the institutional maze had the best intentions of providing support services to meet the needs of each youth that entered.

However, there were times when these intentions were not congruent with the reality of the institution’s operations. This included poorly trained staff, insufficient resources to provide adequate services, and limited space to accommodate all youth requiring services. For example, a teen with drug and alcohol addiction could be placed into a rehabilitation program as a more

the residential phase. The program is affiliated with the National Guard. Youth who participate in the Hawaiʻi Youth Challenge are refered to as “cadets” while in the program. 21 43 participants discussed here include 35 youth participants, and eight adult community members who had experience as teens in the juvenile justice system.

155 productive intervention than incarceration. However, there were instances when youth resisted rehabilitation and ran away from the program, or relapsed and used substances after completing the program, which violated their probation. Thus, adding another twist, turn, or block that prevented the youth from exiting the maze.

Navigating through these institutions was confusing, frustrating, and challenging for teens in this study. The different institutions that youth were involved in would send them down a path with the intention of them successfully completing the requirements to exit the maze. The pathways were sequences of services and events that would determine if youth could move closer to exiting the institutional maze or instead have to travel deeper into the maze while feeling stuck or lost. Regardless of an individual’s personal agency, however, processes in the institutional maze were not explicit or clearly defined for youth and were at times overwhelming.

These processes included not knowing what would or could happen upon entrance to the maze, and how to complete the requirements to exit the maze. The lack of clarity created confusion, frustration, and stress for teens and their families. Part of this confusion came out of youth being moved between institutions within the maze. The complexity and instability inherent in consistently being moved around within the maze was overwhelming. For some youth, this led them to resist institutional interventions, further pushing them into the center of the maze with no exit in sight.

Probation was a key factor that prevented many youths from exiting the maze, forcing many to venture further into the institutional maze. Conditions and lengths of probation were individualized for each case. If youth were able to meet all conditions of their probation, which could include completing an intervention or program, their case would be closed, and they would exit the maze. Two of the most common challenges youth had with meeting their conditions of

156 probation included paying back restitution and completing community service hours. Family court recognized this and implemented the Home of Moderation (HM) community service program to provide youth additional support as they attempted to complete their requirements and exit institutional control. A departure from the maze entailed the completion of all requirements imposed by institutions.

Leaving the institutional maze meant different things for each youth depending on their experience and their level of support in their social network. For most teens, the most important goals of exiting the maze were gaining safety, feeling supported, and obtaining autonomy and control over their lives. Regardless of the agency a youth was assigned to, processes in the institutional maze were not explicit or clearly defined for youth and at times overwhelming.

These processes included not knowing what would or could happen upon entrance to the maze, and how to complete the requirements to exit the maze. The lack of clarity created confusion, frustration, and stress for teens and their families. Part of this confusion came out of youth being moved between institutions and interventions once in the maze. The complexity and instability of consistently being moved around within the maze was overwhelming. For some youth, this led them to resist institutional interventions, further pushing them into the center of the maze with no exit in sight.

Instability

Some of the youth in this study experienced instability and ambiguity as they navigated the institutional maze, moving between different institutions and facing various interventions that partnered with institutions. As demonstrated in previous chapters, instability included missing school or experiencing inconsistencies in their education, as well as strained relationships with

157 family and peers, and unstable housing. Living situations for youth were inconsistent, meaning some teens moved frequently, while others lived with different family members over time and, in extreme cases, experienced homelessness. As a result of unstable or distressing living situations, teens would sometimes run away and live on the street or in shelters, become incarcerated or be sent to foster care as they entered the institutional maze of young people that become involved with the juvenile justice system.

Unstable living conditions were especially common for institutionally involved youth, either CPS involved, mental health involved, justice-involved, or “crossover youth” (Flores et al.

2018). Crossover youth were youth who were both in the foster care and juvenile justice system

(Flores et al. 2018). For example, some teens’ constant movement and instability were complex, and at times, was a result of inadequate support services and limited social support networks while in the maze. The inadequacies of institutional assistance included the inability to engage youth in programs because teens would resist institutional control, perhaps due to their lack of trust in institutions and its actors. The dynamic journey of confusion and instability in the institutional maze created uncertainty and a lack of safety for youth as they navigated through different institutions.

Seeking safety

The instability in teens’ lives led many to seek safety by getting out of harm’s way, physically and emotionally. Youth sought safety in different ways such as running away, moving to live with other family members, seeking non-judgmental supportive adults outside of the home, participating in therapeutic programs and finding spaces that felt safe and free of judgment. Safety for youth meant being in the company of people and spaces that allowed them

158 to freely express themselves without judgment while feeling protected from physical and emotional harm. Instability in teens’ lives intensified their challenge in finding safe spaces and support. At times, the youth did not know how to get to a place that was stable to feel safe, leading them to question who they could trust as they navigated through the institutional maze.

Scholars have noted the importance of stability in young peoples’ lives and the impacts it can have on establishing healthy bonds (Huang et al. 2015). Part of the search for safety and the establishment of healthy relationships with others included developing a strong sense of self. A strong sense of self is how a person thinks and views their worth, beliefs, goals, values, and purpose in the world. Teens in this study expressed feeling “lost,” having “no direction,” and trying to “escape” through “anything that brought pleasure.”

Adolescence is an exploration period in youth development in which they are developing a sense of self, often through trial and error. Identity exploration and formation are part of what makes the teenage years challenging and emotionally distressing for many young people. Justin discussed his identity struggle, having been born in Korea and moved to Hawaiʻi when he was adopted at six-months-old. He said, “I have no idea who my natural parents are… And so [I was] just trying to figure out where I fit, I guess.” His parents did not keep his adoption a secret and told him from an early age as is recommended by the American Psychological Association.

Justin said he had “good parents” who were middle class and took good care of him and his siblings. When he reflected on his deviance as an adolescent, he said, “I don’t know. I guess it was like an identity crisis kind of thing. Like, if I’m not these people’s kid, who the fuck am I?

And so… I guess I was like, I guess, confused at the time…I remember being angry a lot of the time and I didn’t know why.”

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Justin moved between probation, non-secure facilities22, and detention facilities during his adolescence. His first encounter with the juvenile justice system came when he was caught stealing cigarettes at 12 years old. He was with his adoptive mother when the incident happened.

His mother did not know he had stolen the cigarettes until he was stopped by the grocery store employee, and the police were called. The police briefly detained Justin and gave him a warning and released him to his mother. He was later arrested multiple times for different offenses. At school, he was once arrested for possession of marijuana and was sent to a non-secure facility close to the rural community he lived in. He mentioned that he was arrested for various offenses as a teenager ranging from drug possession to stealing cars. However, he did not go into detail describing each arrest and only discussed the more significant encounters with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. One example he provided occurred when he was 16 years old.

He was incarcerated at a long-term detention facility on Oʻahu for six months. He felt his incarceration at the facility on Oʻahu was an “educational” experience in how to be a “better criminal.” He said he learned how to steal cars and how to “work the system,” as in, the juvenile justice system. He said:

I learned how to say the right thing so that I don’t get in too much trouble…It showed me how to be a certain way so that I don’t get noticed, and people overlook me. Nothing positive came out of my experience with the juvenile justice system…I mean, all it did was make me more willing to do worse things as an adult.

Like Justin, other participants who ‘bounced around’ the institutional maze also experienced severe upheavals that intensified the instability in their lives. Ricky also experienced

22 A non-secure facility is a less restrictive residential youth facility for lower-risk, court- involved teens. Youth behavior and movement are monitored, but not restricted like in a lock- down facility. For example, youth can attend school off-site with the expectation of returning to the facility after school.

160 compounding upheavals that he coped with by using substances. Ricky said he had “been through a lot” with his family and stated, “Itʻs not just me getting in trouble like before any of this [justice-involvement] has ever happened. Like it all came from family issues in court.” The custody battle during his parents’ divorce led to instability in Ricky’s living situation. He moved back and forth between his mother who lived in Hawaiʻi and his father who lived on the continental U.S. He described using marijuana as a way to cope with the family instability he experienced. His substance use was his entry into the institutional maze – he was first suspended at school for marijuana possession, and two years later, arrested for breaking and entering a home while intoxicated.

Ricky described the experience of being arrested and entering the institutional maze. He said he was having a “bad day” and took “two bars” of Xanax at school and became extremely intoxicated. He was “somehow” able to make it home after school. His mother and step-father were furious with him and kicked him out of the house. He then tried, unsuccessfully, to go to his girlfriend’s house. Later, he woke up to someone walking into the living room he had been sleeping in and realized that he was in a stranger’s home. They called the police reporting someone had broken into their home. Ricky remembers trying to run from the police, but he did not get far and was arrested.

Ricky: It was terrible! First of all, me not being in the right mind to like talk to adults and have a clear mindset. Like that was already scary. And then me being taken to go get my mugshot and put my fingerprints down. And now I’m in the system and now I have a parole officer and I was on house arrest for a little bit. It was just terrible. Like I felt trapped and hopeless. Like that was the end of my life and it was the bottom of the line. And just like, it felt like a pit that I could never come out of and it was just, it was a completely hopeless feeling. Researcher: How long did that feeling last for?

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Ricky: It’s still going on. There’s no change. I don’t completely know what’s keeping me going besides my own personal drive for things that I like maybe, I don’t know.

The instability that youth experienced and the desire for adequate support, especially in the home, was a crucial component in why youth in this study felt stuck and “hopeless” in the institutional maze. Feelings of safety and stability in their living situations can foster motivation and hope for teens and can result in positive behavior changes leading to the end of institutional control (Flores 2016). Ricky did not feel that he had stability at home and so he sought support and safety from adults outside of the home.

When Ricky discussed the interventions he was involved in, he listed that he had multiple counseling services such as “family therapy” and “personal therapy.” He mentioned he also had additional support workers:

I had like a, somewhat of an extra counselor provided by the court. He kind of just came to monitor my grades and help me out with that. And then I had my real in school counselor, the drug counselor, and then my parole officer.

Support services as described by Ricky were another aspect of the institutional maze that attempted to provide youth with stability as they bounced around the maze. Ricky actively sought out different support services in and outside of the juvenile justice system, as he felt he

“needed more.” He said he had a lot of outside support and felt “like I’m reaching out to so many other adults because I don’t really feel confident in my parents giving me that support.” He recalled feeling as if his family thought of him as a ‘criminal’ because of his involvement in the justice system. He had internalized that criminal label and recognized that he had engaged in secondary deviance because of it. While on probation, Ricky stole money from another student at school. He was not arrested, but the incident was reported to his probation officer. When he

162 talked to his probation officer about what happened, he asked her for more community service hours, which she agreed to and regarded as an appropriate punishment for the incident. Ricky believed that community service would be mutually beneficial for himself and the community.

He also felt community service was an additional opportunity to receive support and mentorship.

David is another example of a teen that was ensnared in multiple overlapping institutions as an adolescent. David’s parents divorced when he was young so he would see his dad

“periodically.” After his parents separated, he lived with his mother until he was 12 years old. He mentioned that his mother “was severely mentally ill, so a lot of the times I would come home, and she wasn’t…I mean, she’d be there, but she wasn’t there…She also worked a lot. So, I was by myself a lot.” When he was in middle school his mother moved to another island, forcing

David to move in with his father. David said moving to live with his father was “pretty different” in comparison to living with his mother who was “pretty lenient” and let David “do whatever I wanted.” About living with his dad, he said, “it was kind of hard for me to acclimate.”

As an adult reflecting on his childhood, David recognized the instability he experienced and attributed that to his delinquency:

I moved around a lot as a kid, so I didn’t really have a real stable life. Like, I didn’t really have a stable household or anything like that. So, I think that kind of contributed to that kind of escapism…and alcoholism runs in my family, drug addiction runs in my family, mental illness runs in my family on both sides. So, I kind of got it from all angles, I guess.

David was unable to escape the instability and chaos in his home life and engaged in substance use as a coping mechanism. When David discussed his teenage years, he said he had a lot of

“emotional issues”:

Looking back at it now as an adult, I think the biggest thing that I was trying to do was escape. So, anything that brought pleasure. I

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think I kind of hit at that a lot. So, not only just the drugs and stuff, but girls, and surfing, and skating, and any kind of thing that would make me not feel the way that I was feeling.

Furthermore, he felt that his strained relationship with his parents and the difficulties at home

“instilled a lot of fear in me in certain ways.” He explained further,

I [can] probably pretty securely say that my biggest fear in life is that I’m going to end up suffering from some of the same shit that my mom suffered from. Because that’s kind of a big, vivid memory of mine. So, I think that instilled a lot of fear in me, it instilled a lot of anger in me…[and] probably a lot of abandonment kind of issues.

David’s adolescence was riddled with substance and alcohol abuse that pushed him into the institutional maze. His reliance on substances to “escape reality” led him to bounce back and forth between school, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, and the juvenile justice system.

By the time he was a junior in high school, he was caught up with the juvenile justice system and had been referred to multiple youth drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. He said, “I think by the time I was 16, I’d been in three outpatient programs for drug and alcohol abuse.” In addition to his substance use, he said he was “picked up a lot” by police as he was a “constant runaway” and was often a truant student. David stated there were multiple times when he was arrested off- campus for truancy and was returned to school in handcuffs by police officers.

During his junior year of high school, he was arrested at school for substance possession and received an ACT 90 suspension. He described trying to return to school and said, “They kind of didn’t want me to come back. They were trying to make me go to other schools, and other schools didn’t want me to go there. So, I ended up having to go back to the same school.” He mentioned that after his Act 90 suspension and arrest, he was sent to a residential youth drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. When he attended court for his arrest at school, he was given the

164 option of either the in-patient rehabilitation center or the youth detention center. He was fortunate to have had a judge that saw rehabilitation as a more productive option for him than detention. David cited this intervention as instrumental to his eventual success in exiting the institutional maze. David graduated from high school and entered the workforce. He struggled with addiction into early adulthood but was able to eventually maintain sobriety in his mid-20s.

At the time of the interview, he had graduated from college with his bachelor’s degree and had started graduate school.

Not every youth was as fortunate as David to exit the maze. In fact, some youth became involved with institutions at such an early age that they were essentially raised in the maze.

State-raised kids as crossover youth

The exposure to different institutions from an early age causes many youths to be raised in institutions, including several participants in this study. In this way, they are institutionalized youth or state-raised kids (Lerner 1988). Scholars have noted how growing up as a “state-raised kid” (Flores et al. 2018; Lerner 1988; Schwartz and Fishman 1999) can shape a young person’s perception of and response to authority figures, as well as their perceptions of institutions and their ability to provide support (Rios 2017). Negative encounters youth have had with institutional authority figures can influence their “worldviews and outcomes” (Rios 2017:27).

These experiences can, in turn, determine whom teens feel they can trust and feel safe around, and view as forms of social support.

The instability participants in this study experienced within the institutional maze was particularly prominent for ‘crossover youth’ (Flores et al. 2018) who were involved both in foster care and the juvenile justice system. Scholars recognize that risk factors and participation

165 in risky behaviors for foster youth are similar to non-institutionally involved youth, “but their affiliation with the child welfare system makes them more visible and thus more likely to be identified as ‘delinquent’” (Flores et al. 2018:150). Thus, their exposure to other institutions of control such as the juvenile justice system is heightened as they are already under state supervision. For example, many system-involved youths, especially girls, run away as a coping mechanism or survival strategy. Dolley did not feel safe in her foster home and ran away when she was in eighth grade. Her aunt had passed away and Dolley said she just wanted to “run away from my problems.” Running away is a status offense; and as a foster youth, her actions were policed and regulated more than other youth. She was therefore arrested and placed on probation.

She became a crossover youth.

Kalani was also a state-raised or crossover youth, as he was both in the foster care system and the juvenile justice system. He entered the child welfare system when he was three years old and entered the juvenile justice system when he was 11 years old, for running away from home.

He continued to bounce between the two institutions and traveled further into the institutional maze when he was arrested for drug use at the age of 12 and sent to drug court. Then, a few years later, he was arrested for robbing another person. He was in the community service program to assist him with paying restitution for the robbery charge. The instability Kalani experienced as a crossover youth made school challenging for him. In middle school, he frequently got into fights and was constantly being referred to the principal’s office for behavioral issues. He was eventually transferred to Hill School (an alternative school).

Life in the foster care system is unstable and involves youth frequently changing homes, schools, social workers, and building new friendships. Foster youth are often moved to different placements or homes, making it challenging for youth to feel safe and secure. Dolley entered

166 foster care when she was two years old, and by the time she started high school, she had lived in

12 different foster homes.

Dolley did not feel comfortable in her foster home, and instead found safety and security at school, particularly in the classes where she formed strong bonds with her teachers and other students. She relied on school as an anchor, explaining, “I love school. I would die not going to school…It makes me feel occupied and I can do stuff.” She also mentioned how one class, in particular, felt like a “family.” Dolley had a strong desire to foster familial bonds with others, and she mentioned that her favorite class felt “like home sweet home for me.” In addition to the comfort she felt in her classes, Dolley also found the Lunch Bunch girls group to be a safe space.

DeMont was another crossover youth who became lost in the institutional maze after he ran away from home. He described feeling unsafe at home because his mother was physically abusive. He said, “any place was better than home.” He started running away when he was 13 years old after watching his mother beat up his aunt. He said:

My mom beat her ass. And right there I realized that like, “Fuck, I no more one place over here.” You know what I mean? My maddah was beating my ass. Fricken my auntie no even like me…First chance I get, I going. Neva really work out. What do you do when you run away? Where you gonna go, right? So, I just ran down to my elementary school and I slept there that night. Next morning, I went home, and my mom was like, “What the fuck you doing here? Thought you went run away?” I was, “Yeah, but I hungry.” So, I got my ass beat and then she told me go eat.

He ran away repeatedly and would stay at youth runaway shelters. After multiple stays at a youth runaway shelter and at the youth detention facility, he entered the child welfare system.

DeMont’s teenage years were characterized by instability. He spent most of his adolescence as a crossover youth bouncing back and forth between foster placements and juvenile detention. As a foster youth, he moved all over O‘ahu to different foster homes and was

167 frequently in trouble with the law. He said, “I neva did last in one place more than one month. I always got kicked out of wherever I went.” He recalled one foster placement that provided him a brief feeling of safety and stability. What made this placement different is he felt the family actually wanted him to be there, describing that they showed him love as if he was one of their own. Unfortunately, he was removed from the home after his foster dad passed away.

State-raised kids also included teens that were not crossover youth but had spent their entire adolescence in the juvenile justice system. Ella entered the juvenile justice system when she was 12 years old after she was arrested for breaking into a home to party with her friends.

She also described her multiple probation violations during her teenage years as a result of her substance use or partying. At the time of the interview, she was living at Home of Moderation

(HM); she was a couple of months away from turning 18 and aging out of the juvenile justice system. She described most of her adolescence as being under some form of state surveillance and control; if she was not detained or in a residential program, she was on probation. When asked about how she felt about being in the system for so long, she said, “It’s tiring.” When she reflected on her delinquency and early years in the system, she said, “At that time, I was young, and I wanted to party and stuff. I dunno. I was just lost.”

Having spent her entire adolescence in the juvenile justice system, Ella had resisted much of the interventions presented to her. She mentioned she got along with her probation officer but had a challenging relationship with her in the beginning:

Ella: I never like what she do. Like, she told me all the new rules that I was supposed to do. And I wasn’t used to it. So, I would always tell her, “uh fuck you!” Researcher: How did she respond to that? Ella: She would tell me, “you know you have to accept people’s help.”

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Ella said accepting help from others was difficult for her. She just wanted to party and hang out with her friends. The feeling of having freedom and autonomy was what she was seeking; she felt she had that when she was with her friends. Having an institutional adult figure or program provide her with new rules of conduct with enforcement diminished the sense of freedom she sought with her friends. She struggled with and often resisted the rules in different interventions she was court-mandated to participate in. She had completed Girls Court and described the intervention as “irritating.” What bothered Ella most about girl’s court was the intrusiveness:

“Like, always showing up to my house. Unexpected drug test, watching us pee in a cup. Just irritating.”

Ella participated in different court-mandated interventions within the institutional maze and found two programs to be the most engaging and helpful. When she reflected on her perception of juvenile justice and how she had changed since she first entered the system, she said:

I see a lot of changes. Like, I used to be so disrespectful. But now I think before I act. Before, I would just say whatever comes to my head…I think when I went to [a youth rehabilitation program] that helped me. It taught me how to be disciplined. All those things. How to talk. You know.

Even though bouncing around from program to program was exhausting, she appreciated the support from the rehabilitation program she attended, as well as the community service program. Ella bonded with one of the mentors, Diane, at the community service program and felt

Diane was a supportive adult she could turn to if she was having a rough time. When asked what her relationship with Diane was like, Ella said, “I love her! [She’s] like a second mother to me.

Like I know her for a long time…I talk to her about things that I don’t even talk about to people.” Diane understood the importance of being a non-judgmental adult who would listen to

169 youth while providing them guidance and mentorship through culturally relevant activities. She made it a point to learn about the different cultural backgrounds of her youth participants such as

Ella (who was Micronesian), to make them feel comfortable, safe, and supported. Community stakeholders such as Diane took individualized efforts to understand the different cultural values, beliefs, and practices of the youth in her program. Diane acknowledged how that assisted her in establishing relationships with them, and how she felt better equipped to provide them the support and mentorship they needed. Diane provided an example of how understanding

Micronesian culture changed a preconceived notion she had held about Micronesians. What she first assumed was Micronesian youth engaging in delinquency and avoiding community service was actually the youth engaging in a meaningful cultural practice:

I’ve come to realize that there’s so many different things. You know like with Micronesian families I say, “How come you didn’t come last week?” It’s ‘cause we had a party. You go to the party after you do community service, you know. After learning more about what the party is, because in my mind, party is, you know. Parties in their culture is like when somebody has to go back to Chuuk [a state in Micronesia] for like a funeral or something important where somebody lost a job in their house, you have a party at their house, and everybody brings in like a 20-pound bag of rice or spam Musubi or something else. So, the party means that you give to that family and you help take care of the family…So when they say there’s a party, you have to go to it…and that’s far more important than community services or anything else. So, then I get it.

This helped the teens feel more comfortable, supported, and understood by the program mentors. However, even with the support of mentors, such as Ella’s experience with Diane, some youth continued to struggle as they bounced between institutions, including schools and the juvenile justice system.

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Schools as part of the institutional maze

Schools are institutions of youth social control that function as socializing and controlling agents; for some students, they provide the entry point into the institutional maze. By acting as an entry point, schools aid and abet the maze by removing “problematic” students from school, often by reporting or referring them to other institutions such as the juvenile justice system. The reporting and referral process can range from police being called to the school with an arrest or police report filed, or school officials filing a notice with family court that results in a court summons. In addition to functioning as an entry point, schools can also be a lever that pulls students back into the maze after they thought they had escaped the maze. Schools’ participation in the aiding and abetting of the institutional maze demonstrates the complexity of navigating through and exiting institutions of control. Elijah and Alyssa’s stories exemplify this reality.

Elijah’s multiple exposures to and experiences within the juvenile justice system all stemmed from school. His first juvenile justice experience occurred in the eighth grade when he was arrested at school and issued an ACT 90 suspension for marijuana possession. During his

90-day suspension, he was sent to an alternative school. He preferred attending the alternative school because of the smaller student population; there were only 20-25 students at the school.

He preferred “small circles,” which included smaller class sizes and student bodies because he said there were “less problems” in smaller groups. He did not want to return to his traditional school upon completion of his suspension, but he was forced to, nonetheless. He did not feel safe at his original school because of the large student body and class sizes.

In his freshman year of high school, he was chronically absent and considered a truant23.

When asked why he was missing school, he said, “I just wake up late and don’t feel like going

23 In Hawaiʻi, public school attendance is mandated by compulsory attendance laws. A student is considered a “chronic absentee” or truant if they miss 15 days of school and are not excused by a parent or the school. As noted

171 school.” His truancy led him to be pulled back into the juvenile justice system. He was not arrested but was notified by a school counselor that he would have to go to court because he missed too much school. He said he was mad and scared when he found out because “I didn’t know what was going to happen next.” He went to court and was assigned a probation officer and 40 hours of community service. After his court summons for truancy, he was instilled with a new fear of the consequences of not going to school and how that could push him further into the juvenile justice system. However, even with the fear of the legal repercussions for continued absence, Elijah still struggled to wake up in time for school. He did not get assistance from his mother to wake up for school because of her demanding work schedule that included working long hours and irregularly scheduled shifts. His family structure placed the responsibility on him to wake up and get to school on time.

Alyssa’s story also demonstrates how schools work with the courts to push students back into the institutional maze after they thought they had exited. In the seventh grade, Alyssa and two of her friends were arrested at school for writing a threat on a bathroom wall on campus. The experience of being arrested at school was traumatic for Alyssa. She said as they walked out of the classroom and turned the corner, “The cops all came and then they all like handcuffed us.”

She said the experience was, “pretty scary. Like, I was just in shock the whole time.” She thought she was “going to be locked up in jail forever.” Fortunately, she was not incarcerated but was suspended for a week and was able to return to school afterwards. The terror she felt during the experience of being arrested and questioned at the police station was a wakeup call for

by the Hawaiʻi state Department of Education, “Students who are chronic absentees may be referred to Family Court. Family Court can place a child under jurisdiction for truancy if the child is not attending school or is not receiving the educational services required by law” (Hawaiʻi State DOE 2019).

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Alyssa to change her behavior. She thought after she had completed her suspension that the incident was behind her; she focused on improving her behavior and grades. She said

I didn’t want to get in trouble again. Especially, like that. I didn’t want to get in trouble…I knew that I had to do like my best in my eighth-grade year. I went every single day of that year…I didn’t get in trouble for that year. For the last year of middle school, I didn’t get in trouble whatsoever. Because it was like, it, I think that year like meant a lot to me. Because it was like, we had a banquet. So, like, I kind of just, I kind of wanted to go to that. I didn’t wanna mess anything up. And like your grades have to be good too. So, I tried my best. And then yeah. I was surprised that I passed middle school.

Unfortunately, a year later she received a court subpoena for her arrest at school. The lack of communication and understanding of the legal situation or process had left Alyssa and her family with the impression that her case had been closed once she completed her week-long suspension. However, the subpoena she received a year later showed that she had never left the maze as she thought she had. Alyssa said that when she got her summons, she had already

“[forgotten] about [the arrest]. I was like why am I going to court?!” When she went to court, it was her first time discovering that she would be on probation. When she met her probation officer, this is what happened:

My PO was telling me, uh he was saying, you look lost. Do you even know what you’re doing here? And I was like um, no. Honestly, I have no idea of what I’m doing here. He was like oh. And then he went like looking all his files. He was like oh you’re here for the stuff with the middle school... And then I was like, I was like, oh my goodness!

What was additionally frustrating for Alyssa was that while she had complied with the court summons, the other two girls involved in the incident did not show up to the multiple court dates, even though they had been summoned. Alyssa did not feel it was fair for her to have to go

173 through this experience when she did not actually write the threat herself. She was only the

“lookout” to make sure no one was coming while the other two girls wrote on the wall. Going to court was a scary experience for her. Alyssa explained that the prosecutor wanted her to receive a harsh punishment of restitution to pay for the damage on the school bathroom wall, along with over 50 hours of community service. Fortunately for Alyssa, the family court judge presiding over her adjudication felt the prosecutor was being unreasonably harsh with their recommendations and did not believe Alyssa should pay restitution. The judge adjudicated her to

18 hours of community service, which led her to the community service program. Alyssa was relieved to only have 18 hours of community service and found the program to be some level of stability in a confusing system.

Safe spaces

Not all experiences youth had with institutional interventions were confusing, discriminatory, or difficult. There were times when youth were constantly moving around in confusion or being forced to do things they did not want to do. While there were other times when youth experienced what I call ‘ports in the storm,’ which are spaces and activities that give youth the chance to gain some stability while being enmeshed in complicated institutions. In essence, ports in the storm allow teens the chance to pause and breathe away from authoritative figures while under institutional control. These opportunities for repose in the maze provide youth a short period of safety and a safe space for them to take a break, reflect, regroup or recollect themselves, and express frustrations while being supported and not feeling judged.

However, it is only a brief period of safety as they are not completely out of institutional control or the maze.

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Youth at Seaside High School felt the Lunch Bunch groups were ‘ports in the storm’ that provided them a safe shelter and space at school, especially when they were having a rough time, bad day, or experiencing other challenges. They felt supported by their peers and non-judgmental adults when they attended Lunch Bunch groups or excursions. Dolley found the Lunch Bunch groups to be a safe haven for her. When asked if she felt safe and comfortable in the girl’s Lunch

Bunch groups, she said she did, adding, “I love it actually.” At the time of the interview with

Dolley, she was going through a transitional period in her foster placement that was difficult for her. Her foster mother had passed away, changing the dynamic in the home that resulted in

Dolley and her siblings “splitting up” and moving to new placements. She found the Lunch

Bunch girl’s groups to be helpful as it gave her a space to talk about the challenges she was experiencing and get support. When she talked about what she liked about the groups, she said,

“pretty much you guys all make me feel happy and I love smiling every day.” After participating in the Lunch Bunch group for most of her time at Seaside High School, Zippy, another Lunch

Bunch participant, said, “Keep doing what you’re doing…because with this program, it can help kids make better and smarter choices.” She also mentioned that the Lunch Bunch groups “helped me find out who I really am.”

Safe spaces were not only available to students at school, but also for youth navigating the institutional maze, especially those who were detained at YDC. Youth mentioned that they enjoyed the YCW creative writing and art workshops because it gave them an expressive outlet and a safe space to share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in the midst of an oppressive institution of confinement. It also gave them something to do to break up the monotony of the institution and alleviated some boredom while detained. Marko said he liked writing and that the workshops helped the time go by faster when he was detained. Dylan mentioned it gave him

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“something to look forward to.” Dylan had been involved in multiple institutional interventions and did not find many of them helpful. He saw multiple support and mental health providers, and he felt they were all the same and not helpful. He said he enjoyed the YCW workshops when he was detained because he “enjoyed writing” and “telling stories.” He found it to be a useful activity for youth in the system and said, “I think it is kind of important. As in like, we get to let out some stuff that we built in over the time. And like we can’t really express it amongst like our parents and stuff. So, I think like it really does, like help us, so we can let it out.” When youth found an activity or program enjoyable, they were more engaged in the activity and were more receptive and better able to retain information.

Justice-involved teens also found the community service program to be a “port in the storm” through the mentoring they received during the different community service activities in which they participated. Teens liked that the program took them to different places and taught them new things about their community. When asked if he liked the community service program,

Marko said, “It’s kind of fun sometimes. Like they bring us out.” He described a hike he had done the previous week with the community service mentors. It was the first time he had been on that hike and to that location, which was about 15 minutes away from where he lived. Dylan also mentioned he enjoyed going out of the community service office to do different activities rather than “work on the garden” that was at the office. Being exposed to new activities and experiences that were educational while completing a court mandate was important to youth. The community service activities connected them to the land and allowed them to help others while giving youth a space to reflect.

Additionally, some youth mentioned the importance of having community members volunteer and facilitate groups in the detention center. Having college students volunteer to

176 speak with the youth gave them an opportunity to ask questions about school that they might not have felt comfortable asking other adults. Some of the youth discussed the profound changes they made after interacting with volunteers. Marko mentioned he changed his group of friends after he was detained at YDC for over a month. When asked about why he decided he needed new friends, he said that one of the church volunteers at YDC suggested it to him and it resonated with him. Marko said, “Every Sunday they always talk to me like, ‘Oh brother you gotta change,’ and all that. Like, ‘I hope I could help you with your stuff, but I can’t.’” The volunteer talked about how he had been incarcerated and how hard it was to be away from his family. Marko said hearing about that experience, especially the part about being away from family was profound and led him to make some changes with respect to his peer groups.

Volunteers’ presence and relatable experiences influenced youth to reflect on what was needed to exit the maze. However, while some youth reflected on how to leave institutional control, there were other youths who were able to avoid detection and entry into the maze.

Avoiding the institutional maze

Youth who had been labeled as ‘troubled,’ ‘problematic,’ or ‘criminal’ tended to be under more surveillance by institutional agents at school than youth who were not assigned negative labels. As discussed at the beginning of the chapter, there were teens in this study who were able to completely avoid the institutional maze. Youth who avoided the maze engaged in delinquency but did not come under the scrutiny of institutional agents or adults (including parents) who could bring them into the maze. Some youth simply conformed or hid delinquency well and were able to avoid detection from parents and agents of institutional control. Some youth would do well enough in school to gain the trust of their parents, thus earning certain freedoms outside of

177 school. They knew if they did well in school and followed rules at home, like respecting a curfew, they could hide other deviant behaviors from their parents, like sexual promiscuity or smoking marijuana. Doing well at school also prevented teens from coming under the watchful eyes of school administrators and teachers.

Beth, a Malaysian girl at Seaside High School, did well in school and learned how to hide her deviant behavior from her parents by learning from her brother’s missteps. Beth’s older brother would get in trouble frequently with her parents in high school. He had a baby when he was 18 years old. When she was younger, Beth recalled hearing her parents going through her brother’s belongings and talking about how they were going to punish him if they found something they did not approve of. Because of this, she said, she got “better at hiding things because of my brother. Now I know what not to do. And if I ever have to get away with something, I know how to get away with stuff.” Beth shared the different strategies she used to hide her deviance from her parents. One strategy she mentioned was:

I mean, basically I’ll tell them what I know they [parents] want to hear. Like what I’m doing and everything. Like when I go out, I’ll tell them where I am…but I don’t necessarily tell them who I’m with all the time.

Her parents were not comfortable with Beth spending time with boys. She said it was “hard” but that she still “talks to boys.”

Beth had strategies for staying safe when hanging out with boys while hiding it from her parents. If she felt she was in a difficult situation or did not have a way to get home, she knew she could call her brother or one of his friends to pick her up. She described an incident where she took a cab to a location but could not find one to go home. She said:

I had money for the cab back, but I called the cab company and like, I couldn’t download the app otherwise my dad would see like

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I got a cab. So, I called them, and she said “Oh, yeah I’ll send a cab.” And it had been like an hour and a half and there was still no cab. So, I called one of my brother’s old friends…And he came and got me.

She said the “lecture” she would get from her brother’s friend on the way home was better than her parents finding out where she was and what she was doing. She also took precautions to prevent pregnancy by using different birth control methods. She used a period tracking app in her phone to track her various partners in case her birth control failed or if she contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI). She said:

I actually log, like I have a period tracker and you can put tags on it, and I tag their name on the day. So, I know if I were to get pregnant, I help me narrow down who the father is. Like I don’t want to get pregnant and then I have no idea who the father is…also, even though I don’t see the person anymore, I still keep the phone number. If anything does happen, I can contact them. Like, if I ever somehow get an STD, then I have their number, so I can tell them even if I haven’t talked to them in months. I’d just want them to know and all that stuff.

Beth came up with this strategy herself. When asked if sex education at school was helpful, she said it was, but disagreed with the abstinence message presented at her school. She felt it was

“not realistic” and recommended they provide more information for students on how to obtain birth control and get tested for STIs.

Other youth were more conformist and engaged in conventional goals and activities, thus avoiding both institutional control and deviant behavior altogether. Krystal and Samantha were both Lunch Bunch participants who were focused on school and helping out at home. Their family members were strict and restricted them from opportunities to engage in deviance that could expose them to the institutional maze. Their parents trusted them but sometimes would not let them spend time with friends or engage in extracurricular activities. Their parents preferred

179 keeping them close to home. Krystal mentioned she was more focused on education and did not always agree with some of the actions of her friends. She said she was not “boy crazy” like some of her friends. Part of what also seemed to keep Krystal focused on school was a desire to make her deceased father proud. She knew education and her success in school was important to him.

One of the factors that contributed to the ability of youth to avoid entering the maze was their relationship with their parents. This was especially evident for parents who trusted their children but did not trust the government and did not want to include the government in the policing or control of their children and their behaviors. Kanoe’s family trusted her and chose not to condemn her when she engaged in delinquent behavior as they did not trust the state and wanted to protect her from state interventions. Kanoe also hid information from her parents, especially in regard to the number of jobs she held and the activities she was involved in. Her parents were concerned about her safety and her grades at school. Kanoe disclosed that she lied about her age in order to work for a health and fitness company. There were times she had to attend trade shows for this job that were 40 minutes from her home. She did not drive and instead relied on public transportation to get to work. However, the trade shows would often end late, long after public transportation stopped running. Sometimes she felt unsafe navigating her way home. She mentioned she would call a taxi or try to get a ride from a co-worker. When she shared this with me and another counselor at Seaside High School after a Lunch Bunch session, we asked if she had a safety plan or someone she could call if she got stranded late at night. She said she did but was more concerned that her parents would find out and she would have to quit her job. We also asked if her grades were being impacted by her busy schedule and she said they were not. However, we discovered at the end of the school year that she was failing a few classes and had decided to leave Seaside High School to attend school online.

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Conclusion

This chapter began by defining the institutional maze as the complex connection between different youth institutions that serve youth and intervene when youth are deviant. The connection of different institutions of control has created an institutional maze that is challenging for youth to navigate and depart. The complexity of youth’s lives and their journeys through different mechanisms of institutional control illustrated the challenges youth experienced when trying to leave the institutional maze. Schools working both within and at the periphery of the institutional maze functioned both as an entry point into different youth institutions of control, and also functioned to perpetuate and reinforce the institutional maze by thrusting youth back into the heart of the maze, making it even more daunting and difficult to exit. There were times that teens thought they had successfully completed their punishment or institutional maze requirements and returned to their traditional schools, only to have their schools usher them back into the maze.

Leaving the institutional maze meant different things for each youth depending on their experience and the level of support they received from their social network. For most teens, the most important goals in exiting the maze were gaining safety, feeling supported, and obtaining autonomy and control over their lives. However, some youth did not mind staying within the maze if they felt they had a level of control over how involved they were with the institution or intervention. For those youth, it was important that they could maintain the agency and ability to leave the maze if they no longer wanted to participate in the program or engage with the institution. It was important for youth to feel that their engagement and dependence on support services was on their terms, and not dictated by institutions.

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How the youth in the study dealt with such frustrations and confusions depended on their support networks. Some youth had stable lives and strong support networks such that they were protected from institutional entry points. Other youth experienced instability that resulted in them moving between different institutions and interventions. The role of stability and support in youths’ lives was a crucial component to their avoidance of institutional control or their ability to exit the maze. Not all experiences were negative, and many youths in this study were able to find safe spaces while navigating through institutional control.

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CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”

- William Faulkner, (1951) Requiem for a Nun

Hawaiʻi is known as the aloha state and aloha is widely believed to be not just a motto but a way of life. The meaning of aloha is love, peace, and compassion. So, what does it mean to be the aloha state, and does the state of Hawaiʻi live up to that? Some would say yes. People are friendly and welcoming, they will talk story with you, and they will share their home and culture with you. Even the drivers are friendly, seldom tailgating or honking their horns, and many will let you merge into their lane. However, there are many who would argue no, and that there lies a great deal of hypocrisy about the state living up to its motto of aloha. The poor treatment of

Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and immigrants by the state are just a few examples of the state falling short on its motto of aloha. The history and consequences of colonialism in Hawaiʻi might not be visible to some, but for marginalized groups in Hawaiʻi, the past is still very present.

As a nation-state established through colonialism and military occupation, the influence of Western ideologies of individualism, patriarchy, capitalism, and control are present in the state of Hawaiʻi and it’s institutions. This includes the lack of adequate housing, limited and poor health care, food insecurity, limited to no access to land, and the disproportionate incarceration of Native Hawaiians. Scholars have noted that Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and immigrants to Hawaiʻi have persistently been relegated to the bottom of social hierachies and marks of social well being (Okamura 2008; Stannard 2008). The criminal justice system is one area in which this is most evident. As noted by Stannard (2008),

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Although Hawaiians constitute two out of every five inmates in the prisons, they represent only one out of every five arrestees for all crimes… The only possible explanation for this enourmous disparity between arrests and incarcertation is that Hawaiians are singled out by the court system for especially harsh treatment” (Stannard 2008: 166).

Not only are Native Hawaiians disproportionately represented in the adult criminal justice system but also in the juvenile justice system. For example, in a 2010 study by the Hawaiʻi

Department of the Attorney General, they found that Native Hawaiian girls comprised 69% of girls incarcerated at HYCF (Mayeda 2010). This harsh treatment is also present in the education system in Hawaiʻi, as demonstrated through ACT 90 suspensions and other Chapter 19 punishment policies discussed in this study. The challenges youth confront as they navigate multiple youth institutions in Hawaiʻi demonstrate a lack of aloha practiced in many of these institutions.

In this study, I initially set out to investigate therapeutic and counseling-based services in schools and the juvenile justice system in Hawaiʻi. However, once I began my fieldwork, I gained a new understanding of teens’ experiences with education, the juvenile justice system, and the difficulties of navigating a confusing multi-institutional process of youth control. I discovered the dynamic connection between schools and juvenile justice and shifted my focus.

My findings reveal a prevailing multi-institutional process that I refer to as an institutional maze.

This maze consists of an intersection of various youth institutions that create difficult and alternate pathways towards conformity that are confusing and difficult for youth to navigate and exit institutional control. Structural inequalities developed and maintained through colonial practices, processes, and legacies shape these institutions and their ideals of control through punishment, discipline, and pressure to conform. These colonial influences set the stage for the

184 modern patriarchal nation-state that governs through crime. The criminalization of teens in

Hawaiʻi, in both schools and the juvenile justice system, are reflective of the process of maintaining inequality through governing through crime (Simon 2007) ideologies and practices.

Building on feminist and colonial criminology, I analyzed the spectrum of hardships youth experienced and its influence on participants’ trajectories. I demonstrated how various structural inequalities that youth and their families were subjected to limited their access to opportunities and resources. I connected colonialism through the racialized stratification of

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders that restricted economic and educational opportunities and resources available to youth. This played a role in teens’ exposure and entry into the institutional maze. In addition, I described the resiliency of youth in this study to persevere through their multiple adverse life experiences and their ability to navigate the institutional maze, including coping with complications that emerged when youth attempted to depart the system.

The positive outlook many participants had in the face of their hardships, especially those who had been victimized, was enlightening. Multiple youth stated they were “stronger” because of what they had gone through, or as S. wrote in one of her writings from a YCW workshop, that she “wouldn’t be the person I am today” if it were not for her challenges. While some youth were able to remain resilient, insitutional practices would often push youth out of school and into the institutional maze. This dissertation shows the challenges punitive processes of discipline and control posed for youth managing a spectrum of life hardships, that made it difficult for teens to escape institutional control.

Scholars in sociology, criminology, and education have addressed the connection between schools and incarceration (Chesney-Lind and Jones 2010; Chesney-Lind and Sheldon

2004; Flores 2016; Hall 2010; Hirschfield 2008; Kupchik 2010; Morris 2016; Winn 2011).

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Studies have primarily focused on the implementation of crime control technologies and strategies in school settings that increases surveillance and the criminalization of youth at school

(Addington 2009; Addington 2019; Hisrchfield 2009; Skiba 2000; Skiba and Peterson 1999).

Little scholarship has addressed the role of colonialism and gender in the processes of youth punishment and the impacts it has on indigenous youth who are navigating multiple institutions of youth control. This study begins to fill the gap in these areas of scholarship.

While there are studies that examine youth violence in Hawaiʻi (Irwin and Umemoto

2016) and the disparity of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth in the Hawaiʻi juvenile justice system (Chesney-Lind and Bilsky 2011; Umemoto et al. 2012), few works describe the experiences of school disengagment in Hawaiʻi and its relationship to the juvenile justice system.

School disengagement occurred by students being pushed out of school in ways that alienated youth and created an uncomfortable environment on campus. This study of the lives of teens in

Hawaiʻi public schools sheds light on the role of stability and youth conceptions of safety in school, and what school safety means in practice for young people rather than only in policy.

The experiences of teens in this study demonstrate how schools initiate the process of youth entering the institutional maze through different forms of disengagement. Youth are pushed out of school directly by arrests and indirectly by processes such as suspensions, culturally insensitive and racist curriculum, and unsafe and uncomfortable environments at school. Some practices were in the form of codified formal punishments such as ACT 90 zero- tolerance policies that resulted in school suspensions and expulsion. Others were alienating processes that made youth feel uncomfortable and at times unsafe on campus. Examples included

Marko and Samantha being yelled at by teachers when they were attempting to ask a question or get help on an assignment, and Alexis’s experiences with racism in the classroom. Alexis

186 described two distinct experiences with racism that she encountered at Seaside High School.

However, some school staff such as Ms. Phillips did not feel racism was an issue on campus.

Teachers at other schools on Oʻahu, such as Raphael, noticed racist ideologies and practices among their colleagues and observed that students picked up on the subtle forms of racism from teachers.

Youth in this study often could not relate to and at times found public school environment and curriculum to be culturally insensitive and racist. Disconnect and/or frustration with Westernized curriculum was another mechanism that demonstrated the colonial racialized hierarchy in schools that alienated marginalized teens in this study. Samantha and Kanoe, both

Native Hawaiian students at Seaside High School and Lunch Bunch participants, discussed their frustration with how Hawaiian history was taught at their school. They both mentioned being dismissed by their peers and teachers when they confronted teachers about the inaccuracies in how the material was presented. This is indicative of cultural erasure that was part of the colonization of the Hawaiian Islands (Okihiro 2008) and the goal of assimilation through education (Rosenthal 2018).

This research also examined the governing through crime ideologies evident in the use of exclusionary punishments such as zero-tolerance policies in Hawaiʻi schools. Zero-tolerance policies in Hawaiʻi public schools fell under the Hawaiʻi Department of Education (HDOE)

Chapter 19 that housed the Act 90 policies regarding weapons and substance use or possession.

Act 90 was a state-wide zero-tolerance policy in Hawaiʻi that pushed teens in this study out of school and into the juvenile justice system and institutional maze. After their experiences with an

Act 90 out-of-school suspensions, some youth were able to find support and upon returning to school were able to strengthen their engagement with school, while most struggled with unstable

187 support, had difficulties completing high school, and found it difficult to navigate through and exit the institutional maze.

The complex relationship among multiple youth institutions of control that made up the maze led to instability for many participants. Teens struggled with navigating the many twists and turns the institutional maze presented to them. Some young people moved frequently between different institutions and services that increased the instability in their lives. This was especially prominent for teens who were both in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, also referred to as cross-over youth, such as Dolley and DeMont. Dolley and DeMont’s experiences demonstrated instability for youth caught in both institutions that included the lack of support particularly adults or parental type figures they felt safe with and could turn to for guidance.

Furthermore, with the multiple challenge’s youth experienced as they navigated through the institutional maze, there were also safe spaces within the maze that provided teens an opportunity to gain some stability. These safe spaces gave teens an opportunity to take a break and reflect on their actions, choices, and goals. Writing and counseling based programs were able to provide these safe spaces for youth. The teens who found them to be effective as moments of respite were able to also find agency in their narratives and demonstrate it through sharing their stories, as well as deciding what they are willing to share and not willing to share.

Thus, giving them a sense of control over their identity, story, and in many ways their ability to make choices. It was also another avenue for youth to enact their agency by clearly thinking through their experiences and taking control over their hardships by not viewing themselves as victims, but rather identifying their trauma as obstacles they were able to overcome.

This process of reflection and awareness of thoughts and emotion regulation youth experienced through writing and counseling based programs are known in the literature as

188 mindfulness. The impact of mindfulness programs in schools, especially for behavior misconduct or traumatized youth, has shown to decrease suspensions, expulsions, and truancy (Water et al.,

2015; Wisner, Jones, & Gwin, 2010). Studies have found that meditation reduced stress, and anxiety amongst students and improved self-control, emotional regulation, and relaxation

(Albrecht et al., 2012; Waters, 2015; Wisner et al. 2010). Schools with meditation or mindfulness programs have seen a decrease in fights, altercations and inter-personal disputes on campus (Waters 2015; Wisner et al. 2010). The overall result of safe spaces is that they allow teens an opportunity to take a break and engage in mindfulness activites at school that improves school climate and increases school engagment and attendance.

Stability was a key factor in youth being able to exit or avoid the institutional maze.

Some teens who journeyed through the maze experienced instability, in which they were consistently moving between different institutions that increased the instability in their lives.

This research addressed the role of stability and support in youths’ lives that was a crucial component to their avoidance of institutional control or their ability to exit the maze. Youth who experienced different forms of instability found it challenging to leave the maze. For the most part, Teens who were able to exit the maze or avoid it completely were youth who had strong support networks either in their personal lives (family members or peers), or support services and providers. As education is considered a preventative factor or buffer to delinquency (Sandahl

2016; Hirschfield 2004), the role of a safe and stable space in school decreased youth delinquency and was a protective factor for some youth in this study.

Adult participants who reflected on their experiences with delinquency and juvenile justice, such as Justin and DeMont, were able to demonstrate how institutional control can follow youth into adulthood. Both Justin and DeMont experienced incarceration and parole as both

189 juveniles in the juvenile justice system and as adults in the criminal justice system. Their narratives of instability show the dire consequences for youth later in life who experience uncertainty and consistent movement between interchangeable institutions as adolescents.

Furthermore, Justin and DeMont’s experiences in both the juvenile and adult criminal justice system demonstrate how institutional control can stick to and with a person. It is difficult to remove oneself from the grips of the criminal justice system, particularly with the many unseen collateral consequences of a criminal record such as difficulties obtaining employment, difficulty accessing and completing high school or post-secondary schooling, increasing housing instability and challenges accessing housing, and voter disenfranchisement (Alexander 2010).

Colonialism and Juvenile Justice

Conducting a study focusing on the connection between schools and jails in Hawaiʻi brings histories of colonization into the context of examining systems of punishment. Youth institutions of control assisted in maintaining structural inequalities through the discipline and punishment of youth and their ‘problematic’ behaviors. The racialized hierarchies and socioeconomic stratification that were developed through colonization and the development of the modern patriarchal nation-state are embedded in the mechanisms and processes of youth institutional control and conceptions of who is viewed as deviant, criminal, and what behaviors are seen as troublesome. Hawaiʻi’s recent history of colonization provided a site to closely examine the intersection of historical trauma, racialized hierarchies, socioeconomic stratification, and youth punishment. The colonization of Hawaiʻi constructed racialized hierarchies that relegated Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders to the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Establishment of schools by missionaries with curriculum designed to westernize indigenous

190 people, constructed a school system and educational opportunities that prevented upward mobility for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (Okamura 2008; Thomas and Postlethwaite

1984). Racialized structures that historically limited marginalized groups from accessing education and employment were evident in the negative stereotyping and criminalization of neighborhoods, ethnic groups, and youth. This extended to youth in this study and their difficult experiences with education and accessing support services, especially after entering the institutional maze.

The intersectionality of race, class, and gender was prominent in the patriarchal control girls experienced in the institutional maze. Some girls such as Ella and N. (a girl from a YCW workshop) were detained longer than boys for their ‘protection.’ Girls bodies were also policed by institutional agents at school through dress code or by overbearing family members that controlled girls’ interactions with boys. Beth described her parents barring her from hanging out with boys that resulted in her developing different methods of hiding rule breaking from her parents. Ella also mentioned her older brothers allowing her the flexibility to party with her friends as long as she controlled her sexual behavior and did not become pregnant.

In addition, youth struggled with negotiating labels of ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ The internalization of criminalized labels with consistent narratives of ‘making good choices’ and limited opportunities for youth were daunting. Teens in this study, such as Ricky, felt they were treated differently by their family members, school staff, and peers. Girls especially struggled with locating themselves amongst narratives of ‘good girls’ versus ‘bad girls,’ and they often took individual responsibility for their deviance rather than recognizing the structural inequalities and life hardships that were also responsible. Girls like S. demonstrated this in their YCW workshop writings. S. mentioned taking responsibility for her “choice” in using drugs to cope with her

191 hardships. She also discussed her desire to participate in activities “normal teens” partake in but was unable to because of her family responsibilities at home.

Contributions to the literature

In this dissertation, I make three central contributions to the current literatures on the school-to-prison pipeline, feminist ethnography, and colonial criminology. First, while researchers have examined the “school-to-prison pipeline” (Hall 2010; Hirschfield 2008;

Kupchik 2010), this study reconceptualizes the phenomenon as an institutional maze.

Investigating the experiences of youth in Hawaiʻi at Seaside High School and the Home of

Moderation community service program revealed the multiple processes youth encountered when navigating the complex intersection of multiple youth institutions of control. Specifically, I argue that the institutional maze is a complex social control mechanism that functions as a coercive tool of conformity. The collaboration among different youth institutions into a maze- like structure operates as a form of social and behavioral control of youth that includes exclusionary punishments, as well as the erasure of culture that does not conform to conventional western ideals of normalcy and complacency. My findings reveal the structural inequalities, such as class and racialized stratification, that increased the chances of youth entering institutions of control and ultimately making it difficult for them to leave.

Second, I was able to uncover the consequences of the institutional maze through the multiple forms of data offered, which provided an in-depth view of teens’ experiences with institutional control and life hardships. Through conducting a grounded theory and feminist ethnography, I highlighted how the institutional maze is an individualized experience with varied outcomes based on the levels of support youth have at home and outside of the home, as well as

192 how they personally responded to life hardships, trauma, and experiences with discipline and punishment. Through multiple sources of data such as interviews and analysis of youth writings,

I was able to offer an in-depth view of the institutional maze. The maze did not provide one course for youth to travel down; it was filled with twists and turns that often did not make sense and were frustrating. This work demonstrated how racialized, classed, and gendered inequalities are embedded in criminal justice, education, mental health services, and child protective services that shape the lives of youth in ways that are at times helpful, and at other times create additional hardships for young people and their families.

Third, my work contributes to empirical and theoretical research on feminist and colonial crimonology. Colonial criminology research tends to focus on colonialism in structuring male adult experiences within the criminal justice system. Departing from this, I incorporated a feminist approach in focusing on the experiences of colonial legacies in youth punishment for both boys and girls. Similar to Irwin and Umemoto’s (2016) research, I identified the racialized and gendered experiences of youth in schools and juvenile justice that were impacted by legacies of colonialism and the development of the modern patriarchal nation-state in Hawaiʻi. My work expanded on previous literature through the discovery of the greater impact trauma and criminalization have for girls in the institutional maze. Additionally, I showed how teens, especially girls in this study, are resilient and found strength in their ability to overcome or push through their hardships. This research also demonstrated the importance of stability in teens lives, not only at home, but also at school.

My dissertation as a whole contributes to the intersectional scholarship of racialization, colonialism, class, gender, and criminality. In this study, I showed how teens are punished in racialized, gendered, and classed processes, policies, and institutions that illustrate colonial

193 legacies embedded in youth institutions of control. This study demonstrated how schools prepare youth to enter the institutional maze. It also documented their challenges navigating through the complexity of different institutions and support services. In addition, this research showed how some youth were able to avoid the institutional maze through the luck or chance of not getting caught.

While this study focused on the experiences of youth in Hawaiʻi, the findings can be applied more broadly to communities outside of Hawaiʻi through the reconceptualization of the school-to-prison pipeline as an institutional maze. Reconceptualizing in this way can assist in providing more of an understanding surrounding the confusion, variety of experiences with the interconnected system of youth institutions, and the overall difficulties youth experience when navigating the maze. The concept of the institutional maze also demonstrates the challenges of exiting institutions of control, particularly for marginalized youth. This reconceptualization can be applied to other communities experiencing the institutional maze and assist in providing a more comprehensive way of understanding the experiences of youth navigating through multiple institutions of control.

In addition, the findings in this study demonstrate the importance of youth feeling safe and comfortable on school grounds to improve student engagement. The findings showed that notions of safety and comfort on school campuses went beyond conventional ideologies of school safety that focus mostly on physical safety and keeping threats or dangerous individuals from entering schools. Youth in this study voiced their discomfort and lack of safety at school being more of a concern with emotional safety, stability, and feelings of acceptance and belonging, rather than primarily concerned with physical safety, such as physical violence or weapons on school campus. While for some youth, such as the boys in this study, there were

194 times when their school disengagement was related to avoiding fights. This avoidance technique demonstrated that physical violence can be present for youth both on campus, as well as the moment they step foot off campus. It also indicates the teens’ lack of trust or confidence in the support of adults on and off school campuses. Based on these contributions, there are a number of implications that can be gathered from this dissertation.

Study Implications

A culture of harsh punishment and ‘tough on crime’ perspectives have permeated various institutions in the United States, such as schools, as the predominant form of governance (Simon

2007). The shift to punitive methods of addressing youth misconduct that coincided with moral panics surrounding youth violence in the late 1980s and 1990s resulted in harsh policies being implemented in schools, such as zero-tolerance. Skiba and Peterson (1999:381) argued, “If we rely solely, or even primarily, on zero tolerance strategies to preserve the safety of our schools, we are accepting a model of schooling that implicitly teaches students that the preservation of order demands the suspension of individual rights and liberties.” This study adds to the youth punishment and school-to-prison pipeline scholarship by demonstrating how schools and jails work interchangeably as an institutional maze that is difficult for youth to exit.

There is potential for further research in exploring additional support services for youth in the institutional maze. There are schools and juvenile justice systems across the U.S. that are beginning to explore more therapeutic approaches to address school misconduct rather than rely on punitive methods. One approach includes restorative justice practices (Sered 2019).

Restorative practices have been utilized in the adult women’s correctional facility in Hawaiʻi with positive outcomes (Walker and Greening 2010). Some schools in Hawaiʻi have

195 experimented with restorative approaches to school misconduct (Walker 2017), but they have not been as widely accepted as in other school districts in the U.S. Internationally, schools and juvenile justice systems have had positive outcomes after implementing restorative justice practices, including decreases in suspensions, expulsions, and improvements in school attendance (González 2012; Simson 2014; Wearmouth, Mckinney, and Glynn 2007)(González

2012; Simson 2014; Wearmouth, Mckinney, and Glynn 2007) (González 2012; Simson 2014;

Wearmouth et al. 2007) . As restorative approaches include the ‘wrong doer” and those harmed by the wrongdoing, parents are often included in these practices. Research incorporating parents’ perspectives of their children’s experiences with institutional control and their thoughts on youth interventions could shed additional light on the institutional maze, and how to better support parents and teens in order to avoid institutional involvement. In addition to restorative approaches, support services can also incorporate other therapeutic programs such as creative writing.

Words have meanings that impact humans, both positively and negatively. The power in language can provide an individual agency to counteract other language, power structures, and social processes that attempt to deny, restrict, or diminish the agency of marginalized people.

Hegemonic patriarchy is one structure that is embedded in language that has “naturalized” traditions that view youth, especially girls, as lacking agency. However, feminist scholars have noted the various ways women use language to resist oppression and suppression and find or create spaces for their voices to be heard and also create their voices – not just finding, but making, themselves (Morrison 1994; Rich 1986; Tamboukou 2016). Through their stories, teens challenged the structures and ideologies that attempt to silence them.

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Youth recognized the power of words, language, stories, and bodies. They often struggle to find themselves and to thrive in a challenging world that seems to judge every word and action. At times they have felt anger at having to clean up the messes of the past (Morrison 1994)

- messes that their family, ancestors, society, and oppressors have left for them. These responsibilities can be within themselves, or their own home, to the larger battle of fighting the many ills colonialism and capitalism have left in their wake. Amongst all this turmoil for youth to clean up and manage, they are told to “make good choices.” Even after witnessing or hearing the stories of the adults surrounding them having made “bad choices” that resulted in the destruction they are left to deal with, youth bear the weight of individual responsibility to “make good choices” when they are left with none. Reconsidering how we treat our youth, speak to our youth, and guide our youth may alleviate the overwhelming burdens, frustrations, and stress they experience. Providing them with more holistic narratives that illustrate their choices, opportunities, and options when they feel they have none, may do more than set them up to fail when we burden them with the individual responsibility to “make good choices.”

The findings in this study noted the limited economic and political resources available to young people and community stakeholders advocating and providing support services for teens in Hawaiʻi. There are policy implications that include extending funding to therapeutic practices that can build on established institutional support services and reverting, or at least, moving away from punitive policies, particularly zero-tolerance policies in schools. Programming available to youth in Hawaiʻi is limited based on insufficient resources. The findings indicate the importance of culturally appropriate and therapeutic support services for youth such as the Lunch Bunch program and the HM community service program. These programs incorporated activities that drew from Native Hawaiian cultural ideologies and traditions, such as the Lokāhi Wheel (see

197 appendix B) or community service activities that taught youth about how to care for the land.

The services and service providers were also sensitive to the diversity of youth participating in their programs and provided them space and opportunities to engage in cultural practies. For example, Diane, a community service program mentor would provide youth the opportunity to shower or remove salt from the water and sand from their body and/or clothing following community service activities at the beach. Diane mentioned that in some cultures, such as

Micronesian culture, it was based on beliefs of removing salt water and sand from their bodies to not bring the ocean spirits into the home. Supportive adults, such as Diane, who were aware of cultural differences and diversity were important to teens who participated in support programs and/or services. Study participants expressed the importance of non-judgemental supportive adults and programs, and expressed a desire that such services should be available to all youth in

Hawaiʻi. Providing funding, training, and incentives for youth providers to expand therapeutic programs or community service program to other schools, communities, and islands would benefit teens in Hawaiʻi overall.

In addition to examining multiple forms of support for teens, examining the role of parents and/or guardians in the lives of youth is another important area for future research.

Parents andguardians were marginalized in this study. They may well be important in the lives of youth even if they are not viewed or discussed as central to their lives, especially in regard to social supports. On the other hand, we should not simply assume that parents are extremely influential in the lives of their children and in their life outcomes. Indeed, Harris (1998) found that in many cases and contexts, parental influence is only marginally important. She found that peers and genetics have a greater impact on overall youth development and outcomes (Harris

1998). In this study, the few times parents and/or guardians were prominent in youth narratives

198 were if they were overbearing or absent from their lives, as a result of abuse, neglect, or death.

As such, the data did not provide a sound basis for generalizing about parental influences on youth outcomes. Furthermore, parents and/or guardians were not recruited in this study. Parental opinions of youth delinquency could provide additional insight into teens lives at home, how delinquency is perceived or labeled, and their perception of youth discipline and punishment.

Finally, this study demonstrated teens’ resiliency to the challenges, frustrations, and confusion that they experienced when navigating the institutional maze of youth punishment and control. Youth participants in this study pushed through various life hardships and found strength in their ability to overcome obstacles and pain. Some youth such as Zipporah, Trisha, Alexis, and

Ella had positive outcomes in that they graduated from high school and obtained employment or attended college. Their stories point to the importance of support and resources for youth, as well as their resiliency in the face of institutional and personal hardships.

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APPENDIX A. LIST OF ACRONYMS

STPP – School-to-Prison Pipeline

CPS – Child Protective Services

SRO – School Resource Officer

YCW – Youth Creative Writing Program

HYCF – Hawaiʻi Youth Correctional Facility

HM – Home of Moderation

YDC – Youth Detention Center

CEP – Community Eligibility Provision Program

USDA – United States Department of Agriculture

DOE – Hawaiʻi State Department of Education

STI – Sexually Transmitted Infection

ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union

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APPENDIX B. LOKĀHI WHEEL

https://blogs.ksbe.edu/mauioutreachcounseling/sample-page/

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APPENDIX C. FAMILY COURT STAFF INTERVIEW GUIDE Interview Guide For Facility Staff “Education and Creative Writing Workshops Study”

1. What were you like as a teenager?

2. How has your upbringing influenced your professional goals?

3. How did you get involved with working with youth?

4. How long have you worked at the facility for?

5. What are or were your expectations with the programming offered by OHM?

6. How have the OHM workshops differed (if any) from your expectations?

7. What are the benefits from having the OHM workshops in your facility?

8. Have you noticed a difference in youth’s behavior or educational achievements or goals after they have participated in the OHM workshops? If so, what have you noticed?

9. Is there a basis, educational, or youth development model that you use in your work with youths at your facility?

10. How do you encourage youth to engage or participate in programs offered at the facility?

11. What are the OHM workshops strengths and/or weaknesses?

12. How have the OHM workshops affected you or the work that you do at the facility?

13. From your perspective, how have the workshops impacted the youth?

14. What tools have you and/or the facility used to measure the program’s success, strengths, weaknesses, and youth engagement?

15. What has been the easiest element for you as a staff member at the facility?

16. What is/was the most difficult element for you as a staff member at the facility?

17. When you reflect on your experience working with youth, what sticks out to you the most?

18. How could the OHM workshops be improved?

202

APPENDIX D. INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR JUSTICE-INVOLVED YOUTH Interview Guide For Youths “Education and Creative Writing Workshops Study”

1. In general, please describe what your experience at school has been like?

2. What are your educational and/or career goals?

3. What do you enjoy the most about school?

4. What do you dislike the most about school?

5. In general, please describe what your experience in the OHM workshops has been like?

6. In your view, can programs like the OHM workshops help youths with challenges they may have with school or achieving educational goals?

7. From your perspective, do other youths in the OHM workshops have similar life experiences?

8. In general, please describe what your experience in the juvenile justice system has been like?

9. How long have you been in detention, incarcerated, or court-involved?

10. What are your educational goals or plans when you get released?

11. In your opinion, and from your experience, what can facility staff, counselors, social workers, teachers, and OHM workshop facilitators do to help youths who are in the juvenile justice system?

12. What can facility staff, counselors, social workers, teachers, and OHM workshop facilitators do to make being released an easier process for youths?

13. What is the biggest challenge young people face today?

14. What are the OHM workshops strengths and/or weaknesses?

15. When you reflect on your experience participating in an OHM workshop, what sticks out to you the most?

16. How could the OHM workshops be improved?

203

APPENDIX E. ADULTS WITH EXPERIENCE AS TEENS IN JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVIEW GUIDE

INTERVIEW GUIDE “Transition to Adulthood Study”

1. What were you like as a teenager? 2. What were the goals that you had and how did you spend most of your time? 3. What was most important to you as a teenager? 4. What were some challenges you experienced as a teenager? 5. Describe your family while you were growing up. 6. How did these relationships shape who you are now? 7. If you got in trouble at home, school, or with adults, what was the response and what do you think of how they responded? 8. What experiences did you have with punishment as a teenager? 9. Did you have any experiences with law enforcement or the juvenile justice system? If so, please describe what those experiences were like for you. How did these experiences help shape, positively or negatively, who you are now? 10. How do you define justice? 11. What was your perception of justice as a teenager and what is your perception now as an adult? 12. Describe the neighborhood where you grew up. 13. Please describe your ethnic background. 14. How did this shape your experiences becoming an adult? 15. Do you feel that you confronted unique challenges and opportunities growing up because of your ethnicity? 16. Describe your friends and/or social circle. 17. What were the most significant relationships you had in middle school and high school? 18. How important were your friends or peers to you as a teenager? 19. Describe ways that your friendships got you into trouble or helped you get out of trouble. 20. How do these relationships help shape, positively or negatively, who you are now? 21. What activities did you participate in during middle school and high school?

204

22. Describe your middle school and high school. 23. What was your favorite and your least favorite things about school? 24. How did you do in school and what were your thoughts about school? 25. How did school shape who you are now? 26. Describe how your school dealt with student behavior misconduct. 27. Who were significant adults in your life and what was your relationship like with them? 28. What did you do if you were having a bad day at school? Was there a place or person you felt comfortable and safe to go to for support? If so, can you please describe this place or person and what that was like? 29. What is your opinion of zero-tolerance policies in schools? 30. What is your opinion of police officers being present on middle school and high school campuses? 31. How do you define success? 32. What is your perception of the juvenile justice system? How has that changed since you were a teenager? 33. If you were a parent (or are a parent) how has your upbringing shaped how you would raise your children, or how you raise your children? 34. Reflecting on your own experiences, please describe what helps youth in general become happy, successful adults. 35. Reflecting on your own experiences, what are some effective ways adults can address youth misconduct?

205

APPENDIX F. COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS INTERVIEW GUIDE

INTERVIEW GUIDE “Transition to Adulthood Study” Stakeholders

1. What were you like as a teenager? 2. What was most important to you as a teenager? 3. What were some challenges you experienced as a teenager? 4. Describe your family while you were growing up. 5. How did these relationships shape who you are now? 6. How has your upbringing influenced your career and/or the work you do now? 7. How did you get involved with working with youth? 8. Please describe the work you do or have done with youth and the demographics of the population you work with? 9. What has been the easiest part of working with youth? 10. What have been some challenges with working with youth? 11. What motivates you to push through these challenges? 12. When you reflect on your experiences working with youth, what sticks out to you the most? 13. What has your experience been like working with various institutions that serve youth? 14. From your perspective, how has the work you do impacted the youth you work with or have worked with? In a world of instant gratification, how do you measure or know if you have made a “difference” in a young person’s life? 15. What tools have you and/or your organization/program/agency used to measure the programs’ success, strengths, weaknesses, and youth engagement? 16. How has your race or ethnicity shaped your experiences in your personal and professional life? 17. Could you please describe any challenges and/or opportunities you have confronted because of your race or ethnicity? 18. How do you define justice?

206

19. What is your perception of justice? 20. What is your perception of youth punishment? 21. What is your perception of school punishment? 22. What is your perception of zero-tolerance policies in schools? 23. What is your opinion of police officers being present on school campuses? 24. What is your perception of the Juvenile Justice System? How has that changed over the course of your career and/or work with youth? 25. What are some of the biggest challenges youth face today? In particular, what are some challenges youth face in Hawaiʻi? 26. If you were a parent (or are a parent), how has your experience working with youth shaped how you would raise your children or how you are raising your children? 27. How do you define success? 28. Reflecting on your own experiences, please describe what helps youth in general become happy, successful adults. 29. Reflecting on your own experiences, what are some effective ways adults can address youth misconduct?

207

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