White Paper Series · Island Security Policy Institute · 2026
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth are overrepresented in Hawaii's juvenile justice system at rates that standard criminological models cannot explain. The root driver is DHHL waitlist housing instability — a policy failure producing public safety consequences that law enforcement alone cannot resolve.
Research documenting the specific drivers of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth overrepresentation in Hawaii's juvenile justice system and evidence-based island-specific intervention alternatives addressing root causes rather than symptoms. This research is produced under the ISPI Research Methodology Guide v4.0 — five pillars: government agency sources, regional organizations, OSINT/Bellingcat two-source verification, the ISPI Global Expert Panel of 78 members across 14 disciplines, and AI synthesis under practitioner review. All ISPI research is free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Native Hawaiian youth are overrepresented in Hawaii Family Court at rates that exceed what poverty and school disengagement alone predict — the missing variable is DHHL waitlist housing instability
Families on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands waitlist — sometimes for decades — face housing precarity that produces the school disengagement and family instability that drive juvenile justice involvement
Evidence-based island-specific interventions exist and are not being implemented at scale: land-based education programs, 'ohana conferencing as an alternative to formal adjudication, and place-based community mentorship
Discipline 14 — Decolonizing Research — is mandatory for this research area. Pacific Islander youth overrepresentation in juvenile justice systems is documented across New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Island nations. The root drivers share structural characteristics across all SIDS contexts.
Pulley, Warren. "At-Risk Youth and Juvenile Justice in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities." Island Security Policy Institute, 2026. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/wp09-at-risk-youth.html