 Welcome back. This is our 16th show in a series of shows entitled Rehabilitation Coming Soon, where we have been discussing the mass incarceration practices of the United States, and in particular the effect of those practices on the state of Hawaii. I am Aaron Wills, a William S. Richardson Law School graduate and a research consultant for Abigail Quantanakor Research Center, and a paralegal for retired Judge Mike Town's private mediation practice. Over the past 16 weeks, we have heard from numerous professionals in the community who are willing to discuss the criminal justice system and see the problem of mass incarceration from different perspectives. Today, we'd like to hear the perspective from Judge Ed Kubo, who is a current city judge of the First Circuit Court in the state of Hawaii. Our guest today will be Honorable Ed Kubo. Welcome and thank you for the show. Well, thank you for having me. Well, just a little background on Judge Kubo. As a judge, he presides over felony trials. Additionally, Judge Kubo also presides over Hawaii's specialty courts, which supervises defendants in the drug court, mental health court, and the new Veterans Treatment Court. Prior to his judicial appointment, Judge Kubo was the United States attorney for Hawaii, serving under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. From 2001 to 2009, he led a very visible campaign against drug abuse and crimes in Hawaii during which the state saw a sharp and steady decline in our crime rate. In December 2009, he retired from the U.S. Department of Justice. In his nearly 35 years of public service, Judge Kubo has also been an assistant U.S. attorney and a deputy city prosecuting attorney, where he prosecuted high-profile cases, organized crime, serious violent crimes, and crimes against our military and Hawaii's tourists. He also was a senior trial attorney with the law firm of Carl Smith and Dwyer in the mid-1980s. Judge Kubo is a very active in our community and supports our military. He is the founder of Hawaii's Wounded Warrior Support Program, and he has served as a member of the Trippler School Behavioral Health Advisory Board, the Army Family Strong Task Force, the Mayor's Drug-Free Task Force, the Department of Education Parent Project, and the Paloma Settlement Board of Trustees. He also volunteers this time doing Read to Me at elementary schools, drug-free presentations to middle and high schools, and identification theft awareness and prevention to elders. And he is a graduate of Waipahu High School, the University of Hawaii at Minoa, and the University of San Diego School of Law. Again, welcome, Judge Kubo, and thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be with us today. My pleasure. Well, we're going to jump right into it. I know that you have a robust schedule, and we were kind of talking about this earlier, so let's just talk about your personal feelings on where do you see the state in terms of drug abuse and treatment, and how do you think we should address this problem in Hawaii? Well, I think drug abuse is still evolving in terms of how we treat it in this state, but so is the other parts of the nation. What we're slowly seeing is a new, evolving way of how judges are looking at these types of cases. I think there is a realization that's developing that drug abuse is not so much criminal, although it results in criminal arrest, but it's more a Department of Health issue. In other words, addiction is strong, and we see it all the time, whether you're a police officer, a probation officer, a judge, or whatever have you. I would care to say that we have evolved to such an extent where now we're more knowledgeable as judges that this needs to be addressed treatment-wise and not so much locking a person up and throwing away the key. That used to be the standard of the judges 20, 30 years ago, where you would be placed on probation, they would give you one break, possibly two, and if you violated your probation, you were gone for the full term. Nowadays, judges are starting to realize that you need to correct behavior, and as a result, we're using more of the approach that parents are using today as opposed to parents yesterday. We take the time-out method as the most reliable way of correcting behavior and hopefully getting a person clean and sober so that he can start his new life with the best chances of success. Today, it is not uncommon for a person to violate his probation half a dozen times or a dozen times depending on the circumstances, but eventually he's able to get strong enough with our assistance, get on his feet, get into treatment and finish treatment, and learn concepts like safe boundaries, staying away from the neighborhoods that he used to run around in, staying away from certain friends that used to be a threat to his sobriety and attending more AA meetings. And so the judiciary itself are taking on more counselors, conducting our own outpatient programs so that we can have more people together where the court can observe and supervise these people, and the chances of success are increased. And just to kind of go off of what you were saying earlier, in the past it would be like if you screwed up a couple of times, they'd have to throw you away into jail for whatever the term would be. So how does recovery work, especially with these new programs, as far as leniency with the judges, let's say that they relapse? How does that work when someone relapses? Because relapses are part of recovery and because when they have a drug addiction, they know that it's not just going to be, I'm going to stop using drugs forever here or now. It's going to be a bumps in the road. So how would you deal with that when your clients come in and say, okay, I used? In the specialty courts program which consists of the drug court, mental health court and veterans court presently, we practice the policy of manning up. Number one, we know that addiction causes relapses and we can still work with them as long as they're honest to themselves and honest to us. We know they need help, they know they need help, but there's this cloud of secrecy that they don't want to give themselves up and so we try to teach them that you have to man up. If you man up and you come forward, your timeout will be so much shorter. For example, just the other day a person came in to do his ear analysis test and he was straightforward with the probation officer. He admitted that this past weekend or the weekend prior, he had partaken in alcohol and marijuana with his friends. So he took the UA or the ear analysis and it was positive for THC. We sent it away to the lab and it came back positive for THC and alcohol. And so for manning up, he got three days in jail. Now if it's his second or third offense, well it depends on the circumstances, possibly could go up to five days in jail. And if he's in desperate need of treatment, for example, he's had a string of violations and he cannot get himself clean for a lengthy period in time, then sometimes we have to think about holding him until we can get him into treatment. And it's all about getting them back on their feet now. Now it is costly, but it isn't as costly as putting him in jail forever. You know, five, ten or twenty years, which is the options that we have. We would prefer that at the most they spend time in jail a way so that they can get clean and sober and go straight into a treatment program. So the whole purpose is to provide them with the aura of support and services. So as you know, and as we are well aware of, drug addiction goes across many different populations. And so it can affect people who have mental illness. They could have a drug addiction or a person who actually is a veteran. They could have drug addiction. And there's just people who are just completely just into drugs and it's just that there is their addiction, it's just all the drugs. And so that is the need for the specialty courts. So can you kind of explain why the specialty courts were made in the first place and are they actually effective? Well, upfront the specialty courts are extremely effective. The reason why this concept of specialty courts evolved over time was that we knew that with our clientele it's not one size fits all. It depends on how they got addicted and it depends on what type of services they need. For example, juvenile girls might have different needs and services to be given rather than a person who is wealthy and from Kahala. So we try to tailor ourselves to the clientele in seeing what type of needs that group has and then addressing the resources around that. We have three courts as I indicated. Drug court, mental health court and veterans court. But you'd be surprised, these clients, they all intermingle. Right, I was just trying to... So it's not uncommon, in fact it's more common than not for somebody to have a dual diagnosis issue where either the drugs cause mental health issues or the mental health issues cause drug issues. And you have to treat them both differently with different providers. And there's a cascading way of handling things that the experts have determined is the right way for the best chance of a person's success. Now the newest court that you have though is the veterans court, is that correct? Yes, and there's been talk of the homeless court coming up later on too. And that's great, because the reason why it's so important to have different courts is because different resources are available to these different groups. And so for veterans, obviously they have a lot more resources available to them, but they're going to need the help to get to those resources. So it's nice to have specialty courts that can kind of address each population's individual needs. So how many cases do you actually handle as your role as a specialty court judge? As a specialty court judge, I have approximately 1,000 probationers that I oversee. And it's broken down basically with the lion's share being... I'm helping Judge Ahm with the HOPE cases, and that's about 600 cases. I have drug court cases, and that's about 300 cases. We have mental health court, and that's about 50 cases. And we have the Veteran's Treatment Court, and that's about 25 to 30 cases. And we are actively graduating these people from the program. Each of these programs are two years long, so it's not something that they can go in and they'll be out in a moment. It's a two-year program that's filled with counseling, AA&A meetings, constant UAs, meeting with probationers, going to treatment and in-group counseling, so it's intensive. And at the end of the program, we have a very high success rate. In fact, so far the Veteran's Treatment Court, who help veterans, is going at a rate of 100%. Everybody who comes in graduates. And next month, we're going to be graduating 25 people from the drug court program. So, you know, this is a program which we are actually seeing at work. And these people walk out, they walk into court, unemployed, addicted, no motivation, and they walk out of court graduating with a job, with a house or a roof over their head, and the chances of success because they have a sober support system around them. Well, that's great, Judge. Well, we'll talk more about specifically how the courts operate right after these messages. I'm Aaron Wills with Judge Kugel, and this is Rehabilitation coming soon. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host of Likeable Science here on ThinkTekHawaii.com. I hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. to discover what's likeable about science. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is My Mainland. Every Friday here on ThinkTekHawaii. I also have a blog of the same name at kauilucas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha. Aloha. My name is John Wahee. And I actually have a small part to do with what's happening today. Served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you. And I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Welcome back. I'm Aaron Wills. This is Rehabilitation coming soon, and we're sitting here with our guest, Judge Kugel. Oh, Judge, I just wanted to talk specifically about how some of these programs work. So I know in drug court, so if you come into drug court, it's a two-year program. And during those two years, you basically have to take treatment or how does the program actually work? Well, the defendant can apply himself to drug court. Normally they come in by way of referral. Judge Alm refers many of his cases over to us. And that's because Judge Alm believes that they need the additional assistance of counselors that we can provide. Probation also refers cases to us. Other judges refer cases to us. And also we get letters from the defense attorney saying, hey, can you consider my client because my client can use the additional services. What we do, it comes into our courtroom. We get them assessed by one of our counselors. It comes back either appropriate or not appropriate. And if it's appropriate, we set up a petition, bring them in, and then we put all hands on them and see what we can do to help them. That's basically the game plan for everyone. The problem though is with those cases who are in custody because they have no place to go. And so what we do, we have a contract with Oxford Clean & Sober Home. And as soon as they're brought into drug court, we ask them, do you have access to $640, which is the positive first month's rent for the clean and sober home? If the answer is yes, we transition them into the clean and sober home. At the same time, they're undergoing orientation for drug court. If they do not have access to that money, we'll put them on a waiting list for a drug court-paid bed. And we use that through our probation funding to pay for that. Okay. And so a person comes in, they do two years, and they're completely clean, and they do everything the program asks. Is that about how long it takes to graduate from drug court? Yes. And it's not just a straight two-year program. It's kind of like high school. You start off, you have phase one, which is the equivalent of a freshman class. Right, right. Phase two, phase three, and then when you're in phase four, you're already preparing yourself for graduation. By the time you reach phase four, you have more of a solid foundation of sobriety and a lengthy period of sobriety where you can be strong. And you don't need that intensive treatment or counseling. It's more maintenance. Right, right. And so it's just not like a two years on the diet because some people could take three years. Some might take a year and a half. Okay, so how does mental health court work? Because I know I was a case manager and I had about 25 severe mentally ill patients I used to take care of. And I know sometimes that the mental illness doesn't ever go away. You're correct. Yeah, so how does that work for a mental health court when someone comes in? Are they just there forever and you're kind of just monitoring? If they have episodes, they go up and down? How does mental health court work? Mental health court is a different type of court than drug court. With mental health court, the individuals have had a history of mental illness that's established. They're all on medication. And so our programs with them deals more with contacts with Poilani and other organizations that is there to assist them. We have them assessed and case managers assigned to them. So if they need to be at Queen's Hospital for a class or something like that, the case manager can pick them up, take them there. Because many of these people do not... It's difficult for them to keep deadlines and appointments and things like that. And so the type of services that we render to them is quite different. As well as the court hearings, mental health court meets every Thursday afternoon in my courtroom. And that's where it's intensive positive reinforcement of them. And it's a different type of positive reinforcement. We look at the individual and we make them feel so good about themselves that many of them have wanted to come back every Thursday because they want to get either the round of applause or the pat on the back or the handshake to recognize that they are doing well, that they saw their therapist this week, that they're taking their medications, that there was no incidents at their clean and sober home or their group homes. And right now we are... Our success rate is good. It goes up and down with this client group. But overall, I would definitely say that the drug court program, the mental health court program and the veterans court programs, I would rank them straight A's if not one of the best in the nation. No, I agree too because the needs out there and these people are getting good help. And so the veterans court... So obviously you have to be a veteran, a U.S. veteran. So how does... I mean, is it like a two-year program as well for the veterans court? It is a two-year program. We are linked directly with the veteran affairs up by Tripler. We also make sure that these people coming in have served in the military. Now, there's veteran treatment courts across the nation, almost 300 right now. But they have different types of programs. For example, you have programs that there must be combat injuries to be eligible or combat-related injuries. That's not what we have. We try to be as liberal as we can so that we get the most people involved in the program so that we can put hands on them. And so our only requirement is that they be in the judiciary, facing charges, and that they have served in the military period. We don't care if they went to Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. What we care about is what problems they have now because military people have a certain mantra. Leave no one behind. And they have that group mentality of the band of brothers and sisters and you can utilize that. With the Veterans Court, though, we have veteran volunteers who act as mentors and they are in contact, the mentor is in contact with the defendant throughout the week and the mentor reports to the court as far as how the defendant is doing. And so he's kind of like a cheerleader, a coach, a facilitator, and he already knows the VA system and so he can usher the defendant through the VA system to get the help that they need. Oh, that's great. Well, one other topic that I wanted to kind of approach here that you and I both understand how important employment is just to ourselves. And I tried to stress this, too, when prisoners are coming out, the jobs that they actually do, they should be paid real wages and that money should be put aside to either pay the victims back or so that when they get out they have some money to survive off of. How many of your defendants are unemployed, if you know? When they come into the court, I would say 98% of them are unemployed. And that's staggering because that either says something about our economy or it says something about their motivation or some kind of discrimination against them. I don't know what it is, but extremely high. And how I know this is because I look at their case histories and I see the arrest reports and it says employed or not employed. And so I'm able to track them. When they graduate from our program, many of them have jobs. You have good citizens out there and good corporations out there that is willing to give people chances and breaks. And we are in contact with them. We appreciate them. They give these individuals another chance to succeed. And we recognize that these people understand that this might be their last chance. And they succeed, many of them succeed. And when they are employed, we remind them, don't forget your court fees and fines. So if they have to pay a fine, they have to pay it off. If they owe restitution to a victim, we make sure that that restitution is paid off before they graduate. So they make their victims whole in terms of payment. And that's a wonderful thing because most of the time, outside of these specialty courts, they'll do their probation or they'll do their jail time and they'll keep on going and the victim never gets paid. That's right. And I believe personally, I don't know if there's been any studies done on this, that recidivism is directly related to unemployment. If an ex-con or a person is out there as unemployed, they get into these desperate type of actions and they go out there and they do things that end up getting them arrested or get them sent back to jail. So I'm a big believer that if you give them a job, give them some purpose and things will start to fix themselves a little bit. I totally agree. So let's just hypothetically speaking, so if you were a king for a day and you had unlimited money, where would you spend it to help our people? Two big areas are in desperate need right now. In order for us to help individuals, we need to give them treatment. Right. San Island is a great place. Poilani is great. Abilitat is great. Hinomauka is great. You've got Care Hawaii's outstanding. You've got all these care providers that's going full blast and yet there's wait lists to get into those programs. And like in San Island's case or in other programs, the wait lists for bedspace into that program may be six months to nine months long or even longer. That, as we say, kills fight. If it kills a fight, when they need treatment today, they understand treatment and they want treatment six months or nine months from now, they may not feel the same way. So you need to get them at the right time, put them in treatment. If there was only more money for treatment, we could address so many more people. Another area, when you put them into treatment and they are already transitioning out into outpatient treatment, then the question becomes, where do you put them? Clean and sober homes. There's not enough clean and sober homes. And many of the residents in the areas, I don't want them in my backyard. And so there's that struggle to find them a place to stay because putting them back into the environment that they were in may be very unhealthy for them. No, I agree. A lot of guests have come on and said a very similar thing, that the biggest issue that we have is the lack of not good programs, but the space at these programs and the wait list is so long and we just don't have either enough or we need to expand these programs so they can take in more. So there's the issue of space and then the issue of money of getting people to actually care about these individuals who really need this help. So I just wanted to thank you for coming on our show and for taking the time out of your schedule. So we are done for the week and so join us next week for another show of Rehabilitation coming soon as we continue our discussion of the criminal justice system and the effect of mass incarceration on the state of Hawaii. I'm Aaron Wills and this was Judge Kubo and stay tuned because coming up next is Sustainable Hawaii with Kirsten Turner. Thank you.