KWOOP Seminar Series. Gender-Responsive Justice: Learning from Hawaii

About This Seminar

Join us for an international learning exchange exploring Hawaii's innovative approaches to gender-responsive justice. This seminar offers practitioners, academics, and advocates working with women and girls in contact with the criminal legal system an opportunity to learn from overseas innovations while reflecting on our own Australian initiatives.

While many of us are familiar with similar programmes across Australia, this session examines government-led court initiatives from Hawaii's long-established Girls Court and recently permanent Women's Court programmes. Operating within the formal justice system through the courts and police, these programmes demonstrate how systemic, state-run approaches can deliver gender-responsive outcomes at the institutional level.

Why Look to Hawaii?

Hawaii's justice system has achieved remarkable outcomes:

• 88% reduction in law violations among programme participants since it commenced

• First US state to achieve zero girls in juvenile detention correctional facility (2022)

• 20+ years of sustained, evidence-based practice

• Cultural integration of Indigenous healing practices

• Whole-of-system approach from juvenile to adult services

Programme Overview

Girls Court (Oʻahu)

Established September 2004

One of the first programmes of its kind in the nation, Girls Court was created by the Family Court to address the unique needs of girls in a juvenile justice system traditionally designed for boys.

Girls in contact with the criminal legal system face distinct challenges often rooted in trauma: histories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; depression and low self-esteem; substance abuse; and school failure.

The programme provides a positive, proactive, gender-specific and strength-based approach with active family participation, including family and individual counselling, community service, educational and recreational activities, and monthly court sessions.

Results After 20 Years: Girls Court participants achieved 88.1% fewer law violations, 98.2% fewer status offences, and 57.8% fewer detention home admissions. By 2022, Hawaii achieved zero girls in its youth correctional facility—a first in state history—with female probation sentences decreasing by more than two-thirds from 2014 to 2021.

Mohala Wahine Women's Court (O'ahu)

The Mohala Wahine program is an alternative to incarceration and provides women in the criminal justice system who have suffered trauma, abuse, poverty, mental illness, substance-use disorders, and/or unhealthy relationships with comprehensive court-supervised treatment, opportunities, and resources. The goal is for the women participants to identify and address their issues in order to prevent re-entry into criminality and to aid the women participants in bettering their economic condition and life circumstances.

Participants in the program are required to attend regular court appearances before the Mohala Wahine judge, frequent meetings with their Mohala Wahine probation officers, weekly Mohala Wahine group classes, and participate in their individualized treatment plans. Treatment plans are tailored to each participant and could include services and activities that address the participant’s wellness from a holistic framework. Services address physical and mental wellbeing which also include pro-social activities.

Presenters

Our presenters include:

• Judge Dyan Medeiros, Senior Family Court Judge and Presiding Judge of Girls Court

• Judge Trish Morikawa, Presiding Judge of Women's Court

• Valerie Lazo, Program Specialist, Office of the Deputy Chief Court Administrator, Family Court of the First Circuit

• Ranelle Takahashi, Program Coordinator, Family Court of the First Circuit, Girls Court

• Kanoelehua Nakoa, Section Administrator, Women's Court

• Sai Aganon, Adult Client Services Branch, Social Services Manager

What You'll Learn

Participants will explore how Hawaii achieved and sustained dramatic reductions in incarceration over 20 years and consider lessons applicable for NSW. We will examine how successful youth models can be extended to adult women, drawing on insights from Hawaii's recent Women's Court pilot and reflecting on opportunities for similar developments in our own jurisdiction. Of particular interest will be Hawaii's integration of Indigenous healing practices and culturally safe approaches, and how these might inform work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in NSW.

Who Should Attend

Anyone working with women and girls in contact with the criminal legal system:

• Justice practitioners and court staff

• Social workers and case managers

• Mental health and behavioural health providers

• Community advocates and NGO practitioners

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice workers

• Policy makers and researchers

• Legal practitioners and community lawyers

Lunch and Learn Format

All KWOOP Community of Practice seminars are open to anyone keen to participate. They are designed to be informative and accessible to create opportunities to learn and exchange ideas. We appreciate that for many participants you are being taken away from front line client work and as such run these sessions over lunch, and encourage you to eat your sandwich—the session is designed to be a lunch and learn format.