Our jail and prison overcrowding problem cannot wait for billions in funding to be allocated and expended.

Just because former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio became infamous for profiling and civil-rights abuses, it does not mean he never had a good idea.

Another deep look should be taken into his concept of tent-city jails, given their low cost of construction and monitoring, and the friendly climate we have here in Hawaii for such a concept.

Such a facility does not have to be run abusively. Given the legality of camping as a permitted activity on agriculturally zoned land, county permissions for this kind of facility should be easy. Why isn’t this being given a look for low-risk minimum-security prisoners, to clear out the over-capacity overload in our more standard jail and prison facilities?

Isn’t this inattention just a closed-minded partisan political roadblock?

Richard Stancliff

Makiki

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