Task force and legislators rethink new jail

A 13-member task force led by Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Michael Wilson is recommending that the state hold off on its plans for building a new jail on Oahu until the group can issue a final report at the end of the year that provides a road map for reforming the state’s correctional system.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are debating a bill that also would halt work on the Oahu jail and refocus attention on building a new Oahu prison instead that could house hundreds of Hawaii inmates currently incarcerated in Arizona.

The pressure to potentially halt or scrap a new Oahu Community Correctional Center is frustrating some lawmakers who say enough time has been wasted on addressing the severely overcrowded conditions of the state’s jails and that changing course now wastes work that already has been completed.

OCCC, which holds pretrial detainees and misdemeanant offenders, is overcrowded, dilapidated and inefficient to run. The state is looking at replacing it at a cost of as much as $673 million and has spent $1.5 million under a $4.9 million planning and design contract awarded to Architects Hawaii Ltd. and subcontractor Louis Berger U.S.

The state is in the midst of a site selection process and is expected to embark upon an environmental impact statement.

But Wilson suggested to lawmakers during an informational briefing Thursday at the state Capitol that those plans may be premature given that the task force is looking at ways to significantly reduce the state’s inmate population and create a more cost-effective system that is focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment, matters that could affect decisions relating to OCCC.

The state’s incarceration rate has exploded since the 1970s, increasing from 397 prisoners in 1977 to 5,800 prisoners today, he noted. That nearly 1,400 percent increase has far outstripped the 52 percent general population increase.

Wilson said the task force is looking at ways to reduce the incarceration rate by providing nonmonetary bail options, more substance abuse treatment programs and better support systems after someone is paroled in order to reduce recidivism.

The recommendation to defer plans for a new OCCC is one of several recommendations of the task force on which Wilson briefed lawmakers. The task force is also recommending that the state expand its substance abuse treatment courts, create an academy to train correctional workers, and do more to reduce the incarceration of Native Hawaiians, who are over- represented in the correctional system.

The task force includes public safety officials, former prisoners and chairmen of the legislative committees that oversee public safety, among others.

But Rep. Lynn DeCoite (D, Lanai-Molokai-Paia-Hana) questioned whether the task force was bypassing a more basic reality right now, which is that all of the state’s jails are chronically overcrowded, with inmates triple- and quadruple-celled and some lacking beds.

“I’m worried about trying to get those prisoners off the floor,” she told Wilson during the briefing.

Last month the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice asking it to investigate the overcrowded conditions, alleging it amounts to unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Wilson acknowledged that reform plans are “really pie in the sky in many ways with respect to what really is happening” and said it was important to focus attention on basic living conditions first.

Also on Thursday, lawmakers debated a bill sponsored by Rep. Gregg Takayama, chairman of the House Public Safety Committee and a member of the task force, which would stop the environmental review process for a new Oahu jail and refocus the state’s energy on building a new prison at the current site of the Waiawa Correctional Facility instead.

Under Takayama’s plan the new prison would be big enough to allow the state to bring home the approximately 1,400 prisoners who are being housed in a private prison in Arizona. Inmates from Halawa Correctional Facility, as well as the Arizona prisoners, would be housed at the new prison at Waiawa, and Halawa would become Oahu’s jail.

The House Finance Committee is expected to make a decision on whether House Bill 462 moves forward next week.

Takayama said that if the state spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a new jail for Oahu, it essentially will close off any real possibility of also building more prison space to house the Arizona prisoners.

“There is no way that if we spend that much money on OCCC that we would be also able to bring back the Arizona inmates,” he said, noting that Hawaii hasn’t built a new correctional facility in 30 years despite the exploding incarceration rate.

Rep. Ryan Yamane, who represents Waiawa, said he was blindsided by Takayama’s bill and that many in the community heard about the idea only this week. He also expressed concern about slowing down the process for a new OCCC, especially given that the Honolulu rail line is designed to run near the jail and planners are trying to redevelop the neighborhood.

“The time for those discussions and decisions are sooner rather than later,” he said, adding that “kicking the can down the road on decisions like this” wasn’t going to solve the correctional system’s overcrowding problem.

Yamane said he also was concerned that the bill to expand Waiawa as the state’s main prison bypassed community and environmental reviews.

“To me, just arbitrarily picking a site discounts all the input, the hours of public testimony, the numerous public hearings they had on this issue,” he said.