The wisdom is there. It's the political will that seems lacking.

This much seems clear after the first of the latest set of legislative hearings probing reported problems at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility.

Several of the principal players in the hearings confessed to feeling a sense of déjà vu, owing to the fact that the problems with overcrowding, staffing and training inadequacies are chronic and well known.

Everyone seemed embarrassed by the realization that solutions being raised last week to problems at the facility all were discussed more than a decade ago.

And they should be embarrassed. It's a disgrace that the needs of Hawai'i's most troubled kids have been allowed to languish. The time has long since passed for forming a broad partnership — among state agencies that deal with youths, among unions for the employees that staff such programs — aimed at placing the welfare of youths above other interests.

INVESTIGATION, SUITS

Most recently, the youth prison, which now houses about 70 inmates, is being probed by the U.S. Justice Department, and conditions have drawn two lawsuits filed this year by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The need for a new facility was identified in the early 1990s, along with demands for alternative ways of dealing with juvenile violations: Most youths are better helped through programs that target their problems.

Incarceration, the experts agree, should be reserved for the youths who've committed more serious offenses and need to be separated from the community and dealt with individually.

Those were the youths for whom the HYCF was designed: a population of about 30. But because the family court system has been referring kids with probation violations and other lesser offenses to the facility, it has accommodated up to 120 youths at a time.

The courts can't bear all the blame. There are insufficient alternatives in place.

Lawmakers analyzing the failure to establish those alternatives — day educational and treatment programs, especially on the Neighbor Islands — point to diminishing revenues resulting from the economic downturn of the 1990s. Budgets were slashed across the board, and funds for these initiatives fell by the wayside.

Still, programs that take a more preventive than punitive approach are good investments, with far lower recidivism rates than incarceration.

The "easy" solution of referring juvenile violators to the youth prison may have succeeded only at enlarging the population that would become entrenched in criminal behavior as adults.

ROADBLOCKS

Within the facility itself, shortcomings in staff training persist. And when it comes to findings of abuse by youth correctional officers, response from the workers' union leadership has been unfortunately defensive and painfully counterproductive rather than cooperative.

Certainly now that the Justice Department will be combing through personnel records, it would serve the United Public Workers well to sign on to the general mission of improving conditions and the professionalism of the officers, rather than focusing on employee protection concerns.

The welfare of the youth wards is everyone's concern, and those who press a separate agenda really don't belong on staff.

The heat must be turned up under administrators, and the labor unions they are negotiating with, to adopt new policies that were drafted as a result of the litigation.

FOOT-DRAGGING

State Rep. Sylvia Luke rightly pointed out her dissatisfaction with the pace of progress: Only recently have the first six new policies been issued; dozens more are needed.

Granted, these policies deal with difficult issues — suicide prevention, abuse allegations, the use of force — but the long wait for putting them into effect is excruciating. It's a shame that it takes a federal probe to grease the wheels.

What's most important is that the challenge of improving the treatment of youths be handled as a continuum of services by agencies that too often operate individually and at odds with each other. It's a challenge all residents must embrace, accepting more creative programs to help these kids within their communities.

The "not in my backyard" attitude can't apply to our children. It is precisely in our backyards where most of these kids belong.