Here we go again: Another special day, another opportunity for unscru-pulous state employees to abuse the system.

Imagine any business operation scheduling 29 employees for duty, but only nine showing up. It’s appalling — but it’s what happened at the Women’s Community Correctional Center on Mother’s Day, which then forced the cancellation of visits for the day.

Unfortunately, it was just the latest sick-day episode plaguing the state’s prisons system. Since the start of the year, the Oahu Community Correctional Center has canceled a whopping 18 of 22 visitation days, due to staff shortages because adult corrections officers (ACOs) called in sick.

Outages tend to occur on weekends, especially around big sports events: on Super Bowl Sunday, for instance, about a third of 214 scheduled ACOs called in sick. Many of the guards who do show up work double shifts, which strains both alertness and the overtime budget. Prison overtime cost taxpayers $2.6 million in fiscal 2013.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie has made a vigorous push for returning Hawaii inmates from mainland prisons; about 30 percent of our inmates are on the mainland, and the state is nearing the end of a three-year, $136.5 million contract with a private operator housing some 1,700 Hawaii inmates in Arizona prisons.

Much of the rationale for return involves saving money, but much also is made about the rehabilitative benefits to inmates having family and a support system nearby.

Studies show that such interaction during incarceration does translate into more successful integration upon release and lowered recidivism — and that’s ultimately good for lowering crime in communities.

But that rationale sounds terribly tinny if the Abercrombie administration doesn’t get a handle on chronic cancellation of visitation days, caused by staffers’ overtime abuse; no visitation nullifies the need for prison proximity.

Adding to the alarm about the prisons situation were revelations this week about overtime abuse also occurring regularly at the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe. A state Senate Special Investigative Committee probing allegations of misconduct and dangerous work conditions at the hospital heard troubling details of how workers frequently "game the system" by calling in sick on scheduled days and taking overtime shifts on their days off.

These overtime patterns at both the State Hospital and prisons system cannot be ignored. Both lead dangerously to unsafe work environments for diligent workers who aren’t gaming the system and pick up the slack. The willful absences exacerbate security problems and undermine confidence in the public’s safety.

Basically, the state must be forceful in efforts to tighten too-generous sick leave policies that invite abuse. Prison ACOs are entitled to 21 sick days a year, and no doctor’s note is even required till the fifth consecutive sick day.

In the near term, hope for improvement exists with the raising of the bar for new ACO recruits, aimed at boosting educational and work-ethic levels with fresh and elevated attitudes. Recruits undergo more-stringent training on such aspects as standard of conduct, professionalism and ethics, report writing and interper- sonal communications.

On Friday, 26 new ACOs graduated from basic corrections training, and will begin their careers at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center on Hawaii island. Keynote speaker Hawaii Police Department Assistant Chief Henry Tavares told them to aim high: "The example you should set as you carry out your duties is that of a professional. You will go far in your career as long as you are committed to the mission of your department, to uphold justice by providing correctional and law enforcement services to Hawaii’s communities with professionalism, integrity and fairness."

These are words that all ACOs, new and veteran, must take to heart, and to remember when the temptation arises to be any less.