Whereas most courtrooms are places of high anxiety and ritualistic decorum, Judge Morikawa runs hers with a rare amiability and familiarity. She will often engage spectators from the gallery — family members or friends of defendants — in chatty conversations. Some discussions are so friendly they could practically be happening over brunch, except that defendants (“clients” in this court) are flanked by a courtroom guard and a public defender. The camaraderie, the almost familial connection, is all by design.
Mohala Wahine is not simply flipping the script on the criminal justice system by emphasizing rehabilitation over retribution. Many court programs do that; such programs are often called problem-solving courts. They may specialize in drug treatment, mental health or domestic violence; yet without addressing holistically the causes of addiction, broken families or trauma, they tend to have marginal success rates.
Mohala Wahine is more ambitious. It’s redefining our fundamental ideas of punishment and justice. Our judicial system was created intentionally to be authoritarian, with the judge an arbiter of justice meting out necessary sanctions. But by looking at the context in which crime happens, Women’s Court is acknowledging not only what external factors might have led to the crime in the first place, but what can be addressed through a model in which support, rather than punishment, is the foundation. In my view, a system that rebuilds rather than deprives a life is uniquely feminist.
Courts are event-based, meaning they generally consider one single moment in the life of a defendant. Mohala Wahine is interested in context, in the whole narrative: what led to the event, the cascade of mitigating factors, and what will lead — in every possible understanding of the word — out of it. Women’s Court does not dispense with accountability, but it seeks out the ways that systems may have failed these women. Then one by one, it tries to address those failings.
Each woman goes through a program targeted to her needs, but it generally includes addiction treatment, education (high school equivalency and vocational training programs, and also topics like sociology and gender studies), emotional regulation, parenting, healing and self-care, life skills, hula (a deep and important cultural touchstone in Hawaii) and how to navigate any number of support systems she’ll need for the future. Perhaps most meaningful, the court may also help a woman regain custody of a child once she graduates. The primary idea is to keep women out of prison, but also to keep families and communities together, and help defendants create a vision and goals for their future.
