Bring home our inmates in Arizona

The killing of a 21-year-old Maui man imprisoned at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., raises serious questions — again — about how Hawaii prisoners are selected to be shipped off to the mainland and the adequacy of oversight at the Saguaro prison.

It also should renew the push for Hawaii to bring its inmates back for incarceration in-state, and for Gov. David Ige and other leaders to work to fulfill this long-standing goal.

Johnathan Namauleg was strangled and smothered, according to Dr. Gregory Hess, Pima County medical examiner, who ruled the Aug. 6 death a homicide, adding that Namauleg “was housed with another inmate, and I suspect that that inmate is a suspect.”

Namauleg, of Kahului, was serving a 5-year sentence for third-degree arson, a Class C felony, for setting fire to the roof of a canoe club’s traditional hale in 2012. But he was classified as a high-custody prisoner; many factors, including behavior in prison, are considered when determining a prisoner’s custody level.

His cellmate, Jason Lee McCormick, is a Hawaii inmate serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the murder of 51-year-old Robert T. Henderson, a visiting University of Pittsburgh profes- sor, in Henderson’s Waikiki apartment. McCormick was classified as a medium-custody inmate, and it was he who alerted officers that Namauleg, unconscious, needed medical attention on Aug. 6.

Part of the investigation for Hawaii prison officials must focus on how a 21-year-old serving a 5-year sentence for arson, came to be housed in a mainland cell with an inmate with known psychiatric problems serving a life sentence for murder.

Saguaro Correctional officials said Friday that McCormick has been removed from the general population following the incident and is now housed alone.

Conditions at Saguaro Correctional Center have repeatedly come under scrutiny over the years. In 2010, Hawaii’s Public Safety Department sent a team to examine practices at the facility after the deaths of two Hawaii inmates that February and June.

That same year, when 18 prisoners filed a lawsuit complaining about being abused in privately owned prisons in Arizona, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie promised swift action in working toward returning prisoners from the mainland. At the time, about 2,000 prisoners were serving their sentences in Arizona; today, that number is about 1,300, said Toni Schwartz, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman.

Today, though, as it was five years ago, the promise to return prisoners here needs follow-through; after all, most inmates will eventually be released from prison, and studies show that successful reintegration is bolstered by strengthened community ties.

“I am very committed to bringing Hawaii inmates home, because it’s more beneficial for them to be surrounded by their family, friends and a familiar community while they are being rehabilitated to re-enter society,” Ige replied to the Star-Advertiser Friday. “However, I don’t want to set false expectations. There is currently no space for them. Construction on a new prison and jail facility is contingent on putting together a cost-effective public-private partnership that will reduce the burden on the state.

“We are in the process of exploring our options.”

That, at least, is encouraging — as is the release of $1.5 million and $5 million, respectively, for correctional facilities on Maui and Oahu to begin plans for expansion, as noted by Schwartz.

Still, the troubling slaying of 21-year-old Namauleg in an Arizona prison is a grim reminder of Hawaii’s overcrowded, disjointed prison system — one that has languished with options but very few solutions for too many years.