Freedom fleeting for isle escapees

Junior Jorju probably didn’t realize it, but the odds were against him when he took off from Maui Community Correctional Center on the night of July 12, midway through a two-week jail sentence.

Every inmate who has escaped from a jail or prison in Hawaii in this century ended up back behind bars, usually in short order. Jorju, 40, was found hiding in a condominium parking lot a day and a half after he fled.

He had just a week remaining on his sentence for driving without a license and contempt of court. Now he could face five years in prison on the felony escape charge.

"Inmates really don’t think through the consequences," Ted Sakai, director of the Department of Public Safety, said in an interview. "I know that in ‘Shawshank Redemption’ it was carefully planned, but that’s stuff from movies. What we deal with on an everyday basis is a different kind of offender."

Jorju’s escape is the latest in a recent spate of prisoners breaking free from "secure" facilities across the islands. They scaled fences, dashed away from vans near courthouses or slipped away undetected between head counts.

Eight inmates escaped last year, compared with two the previous year, and four in 2011, according to records provided by DPS. So far this year five prisoners have absconded.

All 19 who fled since January 2011 have been caught, like their forerunners dating back to 2000, said Toni Schwartz, DPS spokes­woman. The vast majority of recent escapees were nabbed within hours or a couple of days after they went missing.

Only two were free for longer than eight days.

Airport officials are immediately alerted of escapees, limiting getaway options, and the coconut wireless kicks in.

"It’s not just the island configuration," Sakai said. "It’s basically a small town. People know each other. The chances are great that we are going to find you sooner or later — sooner rather than later, actually. We have a really strong partnership with the sheriffs, each county’s police and the U.S. marshals."

Sakai emphasized that the department takes all escapes seriously and tries to learn from each case. It is doing what it can to shore up its aging facilities and tighten oversight, despite prison overcrowding and staff shortages.

A mainland consultant is visiting each of the state’s seven correctional institutions this month, recommending ways to strengthen their perimeters.

Mel Masuda, career instructor in law and criminal justice at Hawaii Pacific University, cautioned against drawing conclusions from the recent uptick in escapes, since variations are typical with such small numbers from year to year. Roughly 3,800 people are incarcerated in Hawaii on any given day, and far more come and go throughout the year.

"From the DPS data, there is no overall trend over time in terms of escapes from Hawaii’s prisons and jails," said Masuda, who has a law degree from Yale and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard. "The number of escapes appears to ‘spike’ periodically — as it has done in the past couple of years."

Since January 2011 the minimum-security Wai­awa Correctional Facility and Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo each has had six escapes. Oahu Community Correctional Center had five, and Maui CCC two.

No one escaped from Halawa, the state’s prison for long-term inmates, or from the women’s prison in Kai­lua or Kauai’s correctional center during that time.

The escape figures do not include people who walk away from work furlough programs, which allow low-risk inmates who are nearing their release dates to take jobs in the community, easing the transition from structured prison life to independent living.

In January 2013 OCCC doubled the size of its work furlough program, to 216 from 96 beds. As might be expected, the number of people who "walked away" from their work furloughs also shot up, to 26 last year from 16 in 2012.

The numbers have continued to climb, with 28 walkaways so far this year. All but five are back in custody.

About 1,000 people cycle through work furlough programs each year, with roughly 300 participating on any given day, Schwartz said.

"We are aware of the increases in the number of walk-aways from furlough," Sakai said. "In our ongoing review, we are assessing selection criteria and the levels of supervision of inmates."

As for the prison escapes, which average about five a year since 2011, most were nonviolent offenders. Jorju had had a string of run-ins with traffic cops, including overly tinted windows.

He needed a Marshallese interpreter for his court appearances, so he likely didn’t know the penalty he might face for escape.

SOME fugitives have high hopes.

Raphael Hernandez, jailed at Wai­awa for promoting a dangerous drug, got high once he left prison Oct. 19, and then decided to swim for Maui, Sakai said. He ended up at the Queen’s Medical Center and was sent back to jail.

Randy Farinas, sent to OCCC for car theft, kicked out the window of a transport van in January 2013 but was caught in minutes.

"These are guys who don’t have the best judgment to begin with," noted state Rep. Gregg Taka­yama, a member of the Public Safety Committee. "They tend to be impulsive. If they were mature and had good judgment to begin with, chances are they wouldn’t be in jail or prison."

The most notorious recent case involved Teddy Munet, a convicted robber with a swath of tattoos on his neck who is facing a murder charge. On Feb. 20, 2013, he wasn’t fully shackled and ran away from a transport van outside Circuit Court in Hono­lulu, sending downtown schools into lockdown, then tried to hijack a car. He was caught that evening after a tip to 911.

"We made several errors, and he saw an opportunity to run and he ran," Sakai said. "Somebody failed to properly restrain him, an officer failed to properly observe him, the van didn’t park in the right spot. All of these things came together, and he said, ‘I’m out of here.’"

At a court appearance in September, Munet appeared contrite and "sincerely and full-heartedly" apologizing to the woman he had grabbed in the car.

"I had no right to involve you in my little escapade on the morning of Feb. 20th," he said. "I do not seek leniency or any type of sympathy today. There are no excuses for any of my actions. I am a 30-year-old adult, and I’m supposed to know right from wrong."

A similar case this month involved Maui inmate Kristopher Sharrott. He had been fully shackled, per policy, but has special expertise in handcuffs and restraints and was able to fashion a device to free himself before arriving at court in Wai­luku, Sakai said.

A corrections officer chased him down and nabbed him 100 yards away.

"Although each escapee’s situation is unique," Masuda said, "one universal point appears to be that the individual who tries to escape custody believes that he or she will be that one ‘lucky’ individual who will be able to ‘beat the system’ by escaping permanently — the same attitude that got the individual into incarceration in the first place."

OVERCROWDING can create opportunities for getaways. Daniel Skelton, 23, was facing a felony charge of burglary but was housed in an annex built for work furlough inmates because there wasn’t room elsewhere at OCCC.

"He found a weakness in the ceiling over the shower and found his way onto the roof, and from there he was able to drop down and breach the fence," Sakai said.

Once out, Skelton tried to disguise himself by dying his hair orange and painting his face black. That just made residents more wary when he came to their door asking for a glass of water or scavenging for clothes. He was captured in lower Nuu­anu on June 18, two days after he bolted.

Two women breached the fence at the Hale Nani section of Hawaii CCC, which was built for work furlough but is used to house female inmates for lack of space elsewhere. Both were quickly recaptured.

Mary Santos, doing time for theft, flagged down a van in January and tried to jump into the passenger window. Guards pulled her out. Shaylyn Araw, a 21-year-old mother jailed for burglary, was apparently propelled by maternal instinct when she took off in April 2013.

"My understanding is that she had some sort of domestic issue relating to her child; she was concerned about her child," Sakai said. "Police knew where she was going to go. This is a case where the desire to be somewhere else was really strong. She went through the razor wire."

Hawaii’s prisons are far over capacity.

OCCC was designed for 620 beds but had 1,194 inmates as of June 30, Schwartz said. Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo, designed for 206, held 388. Maui was designed for 209 and had 412.

Legislators recently set aside $5 million for planning a new OCCC and $1.5 million to plan a new Maui jail, Taka­yama said. With rail destined to pass near OCCC, that valuable land in urban Hono­lulu is seen as ripe for redevelopment.

"We’ve needed a new OCCC for decades," said Taka­yama, a former spokes­man for the Public Safety Department. "I think it makes a lot of sense for the state to look at selling the acreage where OCCC is now and using the proceeds to build a new OCCC. I would look to relocate it to the grounds of the Halawa prison. There’s room there."

He suggested a high-rise similar to the Federal Detention Center, which is completely enclosed and requires less manpower and no fencing or watchtowers.

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