The state is finally moving forward with plans to add medium-security beds to the severely overcrowded neighbor island jails, including the Maui Community Correctional Center where inmates rioted and set fires March 11. Prison officials have said overcrowding was probably to blame for that disturbance.

The state Legislature appropriated $7.5 million in 2016 to expand the Maui jail and another $30 million to add beds to the overcrowded jails on Hawaii island and Kauai, and this week announced the release of draft environmental assessments for each of those projects. However, those stopgap expansions of the jails are still years away from completion.

Construction of the 80-bed Maui addition and new 144-bed units planned for Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo and Kauai Community Correctional Center won’t be finished until 2021.

The HCCC expansion and Kauai expansion are each expected to cost $15 million, according to the draft environmental assessments. The Maui addition would cost $7.5 million, according to the environmental assessment for that project.

The new units are not supposed to increase the inmate populations at the jails beyond the current numbers, according to the documents.

Instead, prisoners now held in overcrowded conditions or in areas of the jails that weren’t designed to house them would be moved into the new additions, which will meet national standards for jails, according to the environmental documents.

For years inmates at HCCC have been sleeping on mattresses on the floors of areas that were originally designed for recreation and other purposes, and MCCC prisoners have routinely been forced to sleep on floors next to toilets in overcrowded cells.

Crowding at the state-run jails “has exacerbated physical plant operations, contributed to tension among inmates, and diminished treatment and program opportunities,” according to the environmental assessments.

Kat Brady, coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons, said the overcrowding in Hawaii correctional facilities is nothing new, and many of the jail inmates are locked up for minor crimes or violations of their parole or probation.

Brady said it is infuriating that instead of considering alternatives to jail, the state is now hurrying to add more jail beds.

“Despite the work being done and the research emerging around the world regarding reforming correctional facilities into rehabilitation facilities, Hawaii is rushing off to continue our old school, lock ’em up philosophy,” Brady said in written comments.

HCCC has an operational capacity of 226 beds but was holding 405 prisoners at the end of last month. KCCC has an operational capacity of 128 but was holding 176 on April 30.

MCCC has an operational capacity of 301 but on April 30 was housing 355 prisoners even after transferring inmates who were involved in the March 11 riot out of the jail and into Halawa Correctional Facility, the state’s largest prison.

Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda has warned lawmakers that the federal government could force reforms in the Hawaii correctional system if the state fails to deal with the overcrowding problem.

In 2016, Espinda described the Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Big Island community correctional centers as “grossly overcrowded.”

“Conditions created by overcrowding place the citizens and elected officials of Hawaii under a cloud of liability that could threaten continued autonomous control and supervision of the jails throughout the state,” Espinda said at the time.

Brady and others have advocated for years for bail reforms so that people arrested for minor crimes can be released more quickly, and for reductions in sentences for some crimes so that people spend less time in prison and jail. They also have argued for expansion of drug treatment programs.

The Legislature passed bail reform measures and other reforms this year, but it is still unclear how much impact those steps will have on inmate populations.