Reported abuse of teens
prompts probe of lockupThe governor replaces two managers
at the Kailua youth facility
Gov. Linda Lingle has replaced the top management at Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility and is ordering an investigation into charges that guards are terrorizing the teenage inmates.
Lingle removed Melvin Ando, HYCF administrator and Glenn Yoshimoto, a corrections specialist, after reviewing a harsh American Civil Liberties Union report on the Windward facility.
"The allegations are so serious, we cannot keep the management in place at this time," Lingle said yesterday.
At the same time, the Attorney General's Office has launched a criminal investigation into the activities at the Kailua corrections center.
The report's author, Brent White, ACLU legal director, said the guards are the biggest problem at the facility.
"The guards terrorize the wards, they beat them and when management goes home at 4:30 p.m., the guards run the place," White said.
The allegations come from ACLU interviews with 70 HYCF teenage wards and from personal observations during two visits this summer, White said.
James Propotnick, a former deputy federal marshal and acting deputy director of state public safety department, was appointed as the new acting administrator and is under orders to make sure the guards perform properly, Lingle said.
Ando and Yoshimoto were transferred to office jobs within the state Office of Youth Services, she said. Both were unavailable for comment.
The governor's action, after getting the report on Aug. 14, won quick praise from White.
"I am impressed that the governor responded so swiftly. It shows a great deal of good faith," White said, adding that a lawsuit would be a last resort.
Lingle and White both said the state needs to work closer with the family court system because many teenagers sent to the facility are charged with minor crimes such as shoplifting, testing positive for drugs or runaway violations.
"A lot of the judges don't know what to do, because there are not enough programs for them, they think this is tough love," White said.
But the result is a system that brutalizes 13-year-olds who "are targets of violence by the guards and older youth."
The 34-page ACLU report points out 47 measures that need to be addressed and detailed stories of teenage wards being punished by being forced to sit naked in bare cells or being repeatedly beaten by guards.
Wards in the three boys units live in overcrowded conditions, with three teenagers in 85-square-foot cells. Some had to sleep next to the toilet in the cells.
Others, according to the report, were kept in the HYCF television room and were "forced to relieve themselves in buckets kept in the TV room at night."
"Far from being an isolated occurrence, every ward we spoke to about this confirmed that this was the practice rather than the exception," White said.
"Other humiliating and inappropriate forms of punishment include making male wards take off their pants and boxers and squat on the floor naked," the report said.
"Every ward we spoke to had heard of incidents of violence by the guards and expressed fear of being beaten by the guards," White said.
The report alleges that one guard, who had previously been disciplined for using excessive force, beat a 13-year-old inmate who had been fighting with another ward.
"He then landed five or six punches and uppercuts to the child's face and head. The child suffered a split lip, black eyes and a contusion on the side of his face," the report said.
Three witnesses and the victim are willing to testify, the report said.
Other allegations claim that a guard "slammed a child's head into a concrete bed and punched him in the face."
Male guards in the girl's section were quoted as telling teenage girls that they would be raped, according to the report.
"In addition to sexual harassment and sexual assault, girls suffer from a lack of privacy when getting dressed, sleeping and using the bathroom," the report says.
White explained that the ACLU investigation started after the civil liberties union received anonymous calls.
The state was notified and two attorneys investigated, but did not find anything, White said. The ACLU asked if it could investigate and was allowed to conduct its own check.
"My hope is that through working with Jim Propotnick and the governor, we will resolve the situation," White said.
