Hawaii Friends of Civic and Law-Related Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1980 that is committed to advance civic and law-related education for students, educators, and other interested persons in the State of Hawai'i.

Nature and Purpose of Hawai‘i Friends

Hawai‘i Friends of Civic and Law Related Education's mission is to educate the public on civic and law related education.  It is a small virtual organization run by dedicated volunteers that meet in the Judiciary History Center at the Supreme Court.  Hawai‘i Friends works to increase democratic behavior by engaging people in positive civic activities, which they will want to continue.  It designs, and implements interactive teaching programs. 

We the People Program:

Hawai‘i Friends currently provides the We the People, a national U.S. Constitutional law program that competes annually in Washington D.C. for many years.

Violence Prevention Through Cooperative Learning Program: 

Hawai‘i Friends has developed a unique literacy based violence prevention program, Violence Prevention Through Cooperative Learning.  It is a project for secondary students at risk of dropping out.  Hawai‘i Friends often provides the program as a pilot to Hawaii public schools. The curriculum for the program, along with evaluation tools, is provided freely to schools and is available upon request to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   Reading Stories to Change the World is an article describing this innovative program and features Waianae High School students at risk of dropping out of school.  Another article about this program was published in Reclaiming Children and Youth, a national journal for violence prevention practitioners in 2006. 

Restorative Justice:

Since 1997 Hawai‘i Friends has promoted restorative justice, which is based on democratic decision making.  Restorative justice provides victims, and the community, opportunities to heal and strengthen their lives and relationships after suffering an incident of crime or social injustice.  RJ also offers offenders an opportunity to learn from wrongdoing.  Restorative justice is based on the ancient conflict resolution practices of many indigenous cultures including Hawaiians. 

Most restorative justice experiences result in increased optimism of participants and observers.  RJ has been studied worldwide and has been shown to reduce recidivism in a number of settings, i.e. prisons, juvenile and adult court cases, schools. (See, Sherman & Strang, Restorative Justice: the evidence, 2007 at http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/download-pages/download_restorative-justice-full-report.htm and International Institute for Restorative Practices at http://www.iirp.org/). 

Restorative justice deals with wrongdoing and social injustice where specific offenders may not be identifiable (See, Braithwaite, Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation, 2002).  For a small organization Hawai‘i Friends has had an incredible effect in developing unique restorative justice programs and spreading information about them across the world.

Since 1997 Hawai‘i Friends has worked with public housing residents; juvenile and adult crime victims and offenders; homeless youth; children in foster care; prison inmates and their loved ones; public schools; the Hawai‘i State public housing authority; the Honolulu Police Department; the Hawai‘i State District Court of the First Circuit; and Hawai‘i State prisons; to develop, implement, evaluate and publish the results of its innovative restorative justice programs.

Hawai‘i Friends’ has developed numerous innovative restorative justice processes and programs in many diverse areas.  It first worked with public housing facilities in 1997 providing restorative justice processes for public housing residents and managers, and published the first article on its work: “A Hawai'i Public Housing Community Implements Conferencing: A Restorative Approach to Conflict Resolution” in the Journal of Housing & Community Development, Nov/Dec. 2000 (http://www.restorativejustice.org/articlesdb/articles/5404).

Juvenile Justice Program:

In 1999 Hawai‘i Friends piloted a restorative justice program for juveniles, Restorative Conferences:  A New Approach for Juvenile Justice in Honolulu, which was considered by Larry Sherman and Heather Strang in the preparation of their Smith Institute report, Restorative Justice: the evidence (http://www.smith-institute.org.uk/download-pages/download_restorative-justice-full-report.htm).  Hawai‘i Friends consistently receives requests for information about this juvenile justice program.

Victims of Offenses without Known Offenders Program:

In 2001 Hawai‘i Friends developed, applied and measured the results of a restorative justice process for victims where there are no known offenders (Restorative Justice Without Offender Participation: A Pilot Program for Victims http://www.realjustice.org/library/lwalker04.html).  Before Hawai‘i Friends developed this application for victims, it was widely held that restorative justice is only useful when there is a known offender of a wrongdoing.  Seventy percent of all crime in the United States, however, goes without any offender ever being identified.  Hawai‘i Friends’ application of restorative justice for these victims provided healing to many who before were considered unable of benefiting from this approach.

Adult Criminal Court Program:

In 2002 Hawai‘i Friends developed an important restorative justice program for a Honolulu criminal court where mainly intimate and domestic violence parties engage in restorative justice processes, either together or separately (2004, Hawaii Bar Journal, Pono Kaulike: A Restorative Justice Pilot Program http://www.restorativejustice.org/articlesdb/articles/5401).  Hawai‘i Friends has provided this program without any funding for several years.  
Hawai‘i Friends is helping transform Hawai‘i’s prison system from one focused mainly on punishment, to one that promotes restoration. 

Prison Programs:

In 2004 Hawai‘i Friends, in collaboration with the Hawaii state Department of Public Safety and the Community Alliance on Prisons, created and applied two innovative prison programs. 

Restorative Circles:

The Restorative Circle process, which is for prison inmates, their families and victims, which addresses inmates’ needs, including the need for reconciliation, has been pioneering work (2006, Federal Probation Journal, “Restorative Circles: A Reentry Planning Process for Hawaii Inmates” http://www.uscourts.gov/fedprob/June_2006/circles.html).  The Restorative Circle process is the subject of a Hawai‘i state legislative bill that was passed to fund the Circles and is part of a grass roots movement in Hawai‘i for more effective prisoner reentry processes to include restorative justice (see: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=SB932). The country of Belgium, which legally mandates restorative justice be applied at all levels of criminal cases, is working to develop and pilot its own Restorative Circle process with select inmates in that country.

Modified Restorative Circles:

Since developing the Restorative Circle program Hawai‘i Friends has applied the same process for inmates whose families and loved one are not interested or are unable to share in a process, with a group of inmates as supporters.  The Modified Restorative Circles are promising interventions for assisting inmates in developing reentry plans that addresses ways she or he may reconcile without victim participation.

Inmate Facilitator Training:

Hawai‘i Friends has also designed and trained almost 40 Hawai‘i inmates on restorative justice facilitation, including emotional intelligence and solution-focused language skills.  This program has shown promising results (2006, Corrections Today, “A Gift of Listening for Hawaii’s Inmates” http://www.restorativejustice.org/articlesdb/articles/7367.  This article is also for sale on Amazon.com by the publisher). 

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, www.danielgoleman.com, has said that the prison work is “magnificent.”

Community Conversations on Restorative Justice:

Representatives of Hawai‘i Friends and past participants in Hawai‘i Friends restorative justice programs will make a series of at least ten presentations between July 2006 and February 2007 at different Neighborhood board and other public meetings.  The nature of restorative justice and the possibilities of its use in our community will be the subject of presentations.  Input from individuals at the meetings will be collected on surveys to provide information on the direction the community would like to see restorative justice go in the future.  This program is supported by a small grant from the Hawaii Justice Foundation. 

Publications:

Hawai‘i Friends informs the world on its innovative work and has published numerous articles in different practice journals for professionals working in the areas it has introduced the programs including Principal Leadership for school administrators; the Federal Probation Journal and Corrections Today for corrections professionals; the Hawai‘i Bar Journal for the legal community; and The Journal for Housing and Community Development for public housing administrators.  The newly revised third edition of, Interviewing for Solutions, by Peter Dejong and Insoo Kim Berg, a best selling text for counselors and social workers, includes a seven-page description of Hawai‘i Friends’ restorative justice prison programs.  In August 2007 the Journal of Family Psychotherapy will include an article on a promising restorative justice program for homeless youth, envisioned and co-developed by Hawai‘i Friends.

Hawai‘i Friends has received requests from all over the world including New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Belgium, Spain, Canada, as well as many American states, for information on its programs.