Editorial: Prisons need oversight; Tough land-use balance; Act against corruption

Prisons need oversight

The Legislature has unleashed a much-needed watchdog to oversee the Department of Public Safety as the state endeavors to shift its prisons and jails focus from punitive, to a model that steps up rehabilitative efforts.

The Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission, which met for the first time last week, holds potential to spur positive changes. Among its powers: conducting independent investigations and making unannounced inspections in the state’s overcrowded and dilapidated corrections facilities.

As the panel moves forward — with a yet-to-be-hired oversight coordinator — its five commissioners, all of whom have worked or are employed in the state’s criminal justice system, must prioritize public transparency and accountability. In recent years, DPS has been in short supply on both scores.

Among recent examples: In the aftermath of an internal investigation into a March riot at the Maui Community Correctional Center, which caused more than $5 million in damage to the jail, Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda offered state lawmakers a private look at his full account of the uprising, but declined to release his final report to the public.

Also, the legislation that last year created the commission, Act 179, puts in place requirements to speed the bail process, such as completion of risk assessments within three days of being incarcerated. That’s an improvement as previously there was no time limit.

Hawaii is now among at least eight other states with an independent oversight mechanism in place to monitor and improve corrections agencies. In our case, there’s more than ample room for improvement.

Tough land-use balance

A proposed expansion of Kaneohe’s Hawaiian Memorial Park has nothing to do with housing — other than the opposition from neighbors living in the adjacent Pikoiloa subdivision, to the north.

The expansion proposal requires the reclassification of 29 acres of conservation land to add 30,000 new burial sites. The original plan included a housing component, a 20-home subdivision, when it was first put before the state Land Use Commission in 2007.

That was removed as part of an effort to reach a compromise, and the LUC on Wednesday began hearing testimony on the revised plan.

However, there are sure to be more of these conservation reclassification requests for various other projects, as Oahu development pressures continue to mount. And in many cases, the housing element — especially affordable housing — would be a factor weighing in its favor.

According to the commission website, the panel must balance various interests in redrawing boundaries, including conformity to the State Plan and concerns such as “valued cultural, historical or natural resources.” But there’s also a consideration for housing opportunities, “particularly the low, low-moderate and gap groups.”

Wouldn’t that be everything in the state’s proposed super-sized affordable-housing development plans?

That underscores why it makes sense to increase density in new communities, so we get more housing with minimal loss of preservation land. Hawaii’s open space and the conservation ethic are key values, too.

Act against corruption

Compared with the beleaguered city Prosecutor’s Office these past couple of years, the state Attorney General’s Office has seemed no-nonsense and adept.

That tone was reinforced early in AG Clare Connors’ tenure, which began last January, when she pressed for Keith Kaneshiro’s “immediate suspension” as city prosecutor, which he had resisted for months after receiving a target letter from the U.S. Justice Department investigating corruption. Three weeks later, Kaneshiro went on leave.

Since then, the AG’s Office has pursued, or joined, a number of high-visibility causes. Those include opposition to federal mandates over immigration racism and health-care discrimination, plus suing Purdue Pharma over opioids abuse.

Some of the causes have been highly controversial, and costly. Topping that list: the security actions in the Thirty Meter Telescope standoff. The five-month stalemate has cost the state a whopping $15 million to date — with a resolution still elusive. The AG is seeking an extra $3.2 million through June for enforcement operations such as in the TMT situation, plus another $5.5 million for such efforts in the next fiscal year.

Such open-ended costs underscore the need for the governor to end the standoff. Those sums would be better spent tackling public corruption — such as was spectacularly exposed in the Katherine and Louis Kealoha scandal, and may still be unfolding involving once-prominent engineer Frank James Lyon. Lyon, now in federal prison for Federated States of Micronesia corruption, is also accused of bribing Hawaii government officials to win a $2.5 million contract.

It’s hoped that the AG’s Office, in the interests of justice and deterrence, will bring such white-collar criminals to account. The investment to root out corruption in government would be money well spent.