Another day, another report about street fights, this time in the neighborhood across from Castle High School in Kaneohe.

KHON’s Brianne Randle reported yesterday on groups of kids going off campus for fights attracting dozens of onlookers, blocking the narrow streets. Videos of some fights can be found on YouTube.

It’s just another sign of the rising level of youth violence. Is any of this tied to local youth gang activity, directly or indirectly? And what’s the official response here, Waikiki, and elsewhere?

Castle High School Principal Meredith Maeda says the school has been alerted of fights taking place off-campus. But says the school doesn’t have jurisdiction. The Administration is working to find out which students are involved.

“They can say it’s not on their campus, but you know it’s their kids,” says Bianchin.

My question: What has happened to the Youth Gang Response System, a state initiative that brought together state and county agencies, public and private, to share information and coordinate responses to youth violence.

Here’s how it was described by the Office of Youth Services:

YOUTH GANG RESPONSE SYSTEM (YGRS)

The YGRS was created to address youth gang behavior and related issues through a comprehensive and coordinated effort. The YGRS builds and maintains partnerships between public and private sector organizations to provide meaningful and positive opportunities for youth engaging in emerging or more serious gang behavior.

This statewide network of organizations meets regularly to foster the development of on –going strategies that incorporate the following critical elements: (1) law enforcement and gang intelligence; (2) information sharing; (3) training and community awareness; (4) school and community-based prevention and intervention programs; and (5) research and evaluation.

As a result of this collaborative effort, youth, schools, and communities benefit from a range of YGRS services that include school-based gang/violence prevention programs, community-based mobilization projects, gang awareness presentations and campaigns, truancy intervention services, community-based gang/delinquency intervention programs, anti-gang law enforcement sweeps, gang prevention/intervention training, gang-related informational forums, and on-going research on youth gang and delinquency trends. The YGRS is confident that, when working together, these programs are better able to plan and implement strategic approaches that empower youth to make healthy and responsible choices.

That sounds like an impressive array, but the Office of Youth Services was dismantled by the Lingle administration, and system for coordinated response seems to have been dismantled with it, while the news media and elected officials look the other way.

The last serious assessment of the Youth Gang Response System was done in 2005. I know about it because Meda was the principal investigator. If you’re interested, it is available for download as an ebook in pdf format.