The state plans to return Hawaii inmates incarcerated on the mainland to the islands.

Two Senate committees will hear more details of the plan from the Abercrombie administration on Tuesday.

The idea is to learn what the administration has planned so lawmakers can work on legislation that will help prepare inmates for successful reentry.

Hawaii does not have enough prison space for all its inmates, so roughly 1,800 — or one-third — are housed in mainland prisons. 

The Tuesday briefing was announced soon after a lawsuit against the state was filed over the death of a Hawaii inmate who was killed at an Arizona prison in 2010. 

The suit alleges that the state agreed to and tolerated insufficient staffing at the prison where Bronson Nunuha of Waianae was brutally slain.