Hawaii corrections OCCC might be moved

Gov. David Ige has agreed to release $5 million for planning and to solicit proposals to relocate the Oahu Community Correctional Center, an idea that has been promoted by Kalihi residents and their elected officials for years.

Department of Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda said the plan is to move OCCC, the state’s largest jail, next to the existing Halawa Correctional Facility. The new jail would be the largest addition to Hawaii’s correctional system since Halawa opened in 1987.

"We’ve been told to explore all possibilities," Espinda said. "I really believe this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity."

Now that the city plans to run Oahu’s elevated rail line past the OCCC site, it is obvious the Kalihi land under OCCC could be put to much more valuable use as a new development rather than a jail site, Espinda said, adding that the idea of moving the facility has support in the state House and Senate.

"There are a lot of stars aligning here," he said.

The money to explore moving OCCC was appropriated by state lawmakers during Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s administration but was never released. The decision by Ige to finally provide funding to deal with the jail was applauded by some observers who said OCCC is obsolete and inhumane.

"The conditions are deplorable," said Kat Brady, coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons. "People sleeping on the floor with their heads up against a toilet, black mold oozing down the walls — it’s really shameful, and when we send people into the care and custody of (Department of) Public Safety, we shouldn’t be sending them into a pit, and that’s what’s happening."

The relocation effort offers a possible solution to Oahu’s jail overcrowding problem. Espinda said OCCC officially has 989 beds but houses between 1,200 and 1,300 inmates.

Espinda said the new facility should have 1,500 beds or more just to meet current population needs.

It would not be realistic to expect the state to float bonds to borrow the money for the jail project because of the high cost, Espinda said, "so we would need to explore any type of public-private partnership that would allow us to get this thing done."

He declined to estimate how much the new jail would cost but warned, "It’s expensive. It’s very expensive."

The House Public Safety Committee on Thursday approved a resolution encouraging the administration to relocate the jail. House Concurrent Resolution 178 urges the Ige administration to close OCCC and partner with businesses to redevelop the site.

House Public Safety Chairman Gregg Taka­yama said the concept is to lease the 16-acre OCCC site to a private developer for commercial or residential use and apply the revenue from that transaction to build the new jail.

"Ideally, this new (jail) would not cost the taxpayers any money," Taka­yama said. The site "could really provide the impetus for a whole new renovation of the Kalihi neighborhood that it sits in."

OCCC is on the site of the former Oahu Prison, and Taka­yama said it was never intended for its current use as a medium-security jail that holds pretrial inmates and prisoners sentenced to less than a year.

"The design lends itself to multiple problems in terms of security, and in terms of safety for inmates and staff themselves," Taka­yama (D, Pearl City-Wai­malu-Pacific Palisades) said. "One of the facilities there is more than 80 years old, and we’re still housing inmates in there, so it is an inhumane, inefficient, clearly outdated facility."

Espinda said there are a number of challenges involved in relocating the jail to Halawa, including the relatively small area that is available for development on the Halawa property, and concerns that the existing water and sewer systems at the prison might not be adequate to service the new jail.

Halawa has a large outdoor recreation area and a large parking area where it might be possible to build the new jail, or the state could opt to redevelop the old Halawa Jail site, which is now known as the Halawa Special Needs Facility, he said.

One of the benefits of having the state’s largest jail and its largest prison on the same site is that would allow for economies of scale, because both facilities could share laundry, kitchen and other facilities, Espinda said.

Brady, the Community Alliance on Prisonscoordinator, said she had hoped the state would select a jail site closer to town so that inmates who are sent out into the community each day on work release would have access to public transportation. She also said she worried that building a larger jail will allow the state to continue to lock up mentally ill and homeless people who don’t belong there.

"This is not aloha, so we need to take care of people who are the least fortunate in our community, and jail is not housing," Brady said. "We shouldn’t be having a (jail) population that huge."