HONOLULU (KHON2) — According to police data, the number of juveniles arrested for breaking the law has gone up, but the number of youths behind bars has dropped down.
Data shows that juveniles are getting arrested for a wide away of crimes, from theft to rape to murder. The executive director of the state’s Office of Youth Services Leanne Gillespie says that this troubling trend is evidence of a much larger problem.
Teenager arrested in connection to Lanakila shooting
“These are the behaviors, they don’t necessarily define our youth,” she said. “A lot of these kids, if not all of them, have trauma in their background.”
Gillespie and her office work with at-risk youth to get them the support that they need, and Gillespie says that the program is working, as fewer juveniles have been admitted to the Hawaiʻi Youth Correctional Facility…