Hawaii’s juvenile detention home still has the glow of a building that’s less than two years old. The hallways are clean, wide and filled with light. But when it comes to its inner workings, things are still very much a work in progress.

Three years after a scathing report detailed grave deficiencies at the old detention home on Alder Street, a second report released last week noted many positive developments at the new Kapolei facility. Yet the report also highlighted problems with chronic understaffing and sick leave abuse. There are still no written policies in place and training is inadequate.

State judiciary officials say they’re working to address all of the issues raised in the assessment, which was commissioned as part of a national program focused on identifying alternatives to juvenile detention.

On Wednesday, Civil Beat took a tour of the facility where Hawaii houses troubled youth. Twenty boys and eight girls were being held, the highest count in recent months.

Detention home Superintendent Rockne Maunupau said he’s tried different techniques to curb sick leave and overtime abuse.

“We’ve been doing a great job in the last 5 months with regard to the overtime situation. I think we showed a decrease in spending in that area,” he said.

To cut down on overtime by one group of supervisors, he widened the pool for “temporary assignment,” quadrupling the number of workers available to fill supervisor shifts.

But changing the culture of his staff takes time.

“We just had to correct a supervisor because he randomly made a choice to work for 32 hours (straight) without getting approval,” Maunupau said. “There were (other) options. He did that independently. We wrote him up, told him he can’t do that.”

Addressing sick leave abuse is trickier given that watching over troubled kids can be highly stressful, he said. They’re looking at tactics employed by other state agencies like the Department of Public Safety.

But judiciary officials pin the real responsibility for improving conditions for Hawaii’s confined youth on Hawaii’s lawmakers.

In budget bills before the Legislature, the judiciary has requested funding for six more male detention home workers. Youth are kept at the detention home — the only secure juvenile detention facility that serves youth statewide — for short sentences or if they are awaiting court hearings and cannot be released to their families for safety reasons.

“Ultimately what it comes down to in order to fix this is the Legislature approving the appropriations for those six workers,” said Senior Family Court Judge R. Mark Browning.

“That will fix the problem,” he said. “We don’t control the purse strings. The Legislature does. They have to feel it’s a priority.”

Kapolei Detention Home No Comparison to Alder Street Home

Physically, there’s just no comparing the former Alder Street home with the new one, which abuts the Ronald T.Y. Moon Judiciary Complex. At just over 51,000 square feet, the Kapolei home is more than twice the size of the Alder Street one.

Whereas meals used to be prepared in a kitchen with rusted counters and sinks, the cafeteria staff in Kapolei now work out of a professional cafeteria with shiny countertops and professional grade appliances.

The girls classroom is well lit, filled with the same science posters and references to the periodic table that you’d find in any other high school classroom. Original artwork decorated the walls and cabinets. Even the ceiling has been turned into an exhibition space with cards naming famous figures in history. Across the hallway, 10 boys sat at computers typing out the final draft of a writing and research project.

There’s a state-of-the-art woodworking shop where the kids have been taking turns carving a Hawaiian poi pounding board out of stump of mango wood their instructor picked up for free off Craigslist.

“No shame, we take whatever we can get,” says shop instructor Ryan Olivaros, a jolly young man with a thick local accent and infectious laugh. He’s worked at the detention home for six years. He blends teaching history with his wood-working instruction: the teens have to write reports about the things they make.

Filled with supportive adults, the detention home has the feel of a positive space despite the circumstances that led kids to be there.

Even from the outside, with its tiled roof and glass windows, the building is hardly foreboding. There’s no barbed wire or giant steel doors. The facility looks more like a brand new school.

“The only difference between my three kids and these kids are circumstances,” Browning said. “The challenge we have is for us to find a way to reach out to these kids and help them become the person they want to be. They’re all good kids.”

Here are some pictures of the Kapolei detention home. The last three pictures in the set show conditions at the old Alder Street facility. The detention home moved from Alder Street to Kapolei in 2010.