Gov. David Ige again withholds funding for corrections oversight staff

Two years ago the Legislature passed what was hailed as major corrections reform: It placed the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the state’s jails and prisons, under the oversight of a five-member commission.

The commission was given the power to inspect and monitor correctional facilities, investigate complaints, report findings to the public and shepherd in broad reforms, transitioning the state from a punitive to rehabilitative correctional system.

But since enactment of Act 189 in July 2019, the Hawaii Correctional Systems Oversight Commission still lacks a salaried administrator to lead those efforts, and likely won’t have one anytime soon. Gov. David Ige declined last year to release $330,000 in funding to allow the all-volunteer commission to hire staff, a decision several commissioners at the time said they learned about only after reading an August 2020 story in the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser.

This year Ige has again decided not to fund the position. Mark Patterson, the commission’s chairman, told the Star-Advertiser that he wasn’t aware that the funding was being withheld again until the newspaper contacted him Friday.

“I hope they don’t think that because they aren’t going to support us financially that we are just going to die,” said Patterson, who is also administrator of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility and a onetime warden at the Women’s Community Correctional Center.

Patterson said he was committed to the mission of the commission regardless. “My passion is high,” he said.

Ige didn’t respond to an interview request, but in written responses said he was withholding funding because of the coronavirus pandemic. “Starting new programs doesn’t really make a lot of sense right now, considering the state of the economy,” he said.

The state is grappling with a $1.4 billion projected budget shortfall, which the governor hopes will be largely plugged by federal aid. Ige added that the Department of the Attorney General continues to provide clerical support to the commission.

The Attorney General’s Office had requested $369,250 in funding for four commission staff for the next two fiscal years, beginning in July. But Ige rejected the request, budget documents show.

The commission — which is also composed of Ted Sakai, a former public safety director, retired Judges Ronald Ibarra and Michael Town, and Martha Torney, a former public safety administrator — has continued to meet monthly for more than a year. But there’s only so much it can do without staff. The commission is subject to the state’s Sunshine Law, so discussions on issues are largely limited to their monthly meetings, which have agendas and are open to the public.

“We are having conversations, but we are missing that glue to continue the conversations when we are not meeting,” said Patterson. He stressed that having an administrator was critical. “Unless you have that person who is following up, we are just talking,” he said.

The commission interviewed about 10 people for the administrator position early last year and sent three names to the governor, per the statute, but Ige never selected one.

Hawaii’s correctional system has been riddled with problems for decades, including severely overcrowded jails and guard shortages. Inmate suicides have spiked in recent years, and there continue to be reports of sexual assaults within the facilities.

In 2017 the Hawaii chapter of American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice alleging that conditions in the state’s jails and prisons violated constitutional protections against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The complaint detailed overcrowding, understaffing of medical and mental health services, unsanitary conditions and dilapidated facilities.

In March 2019, as lawmakers were debating the bill that created the oversight commission, a riot broke out at the Maui Community Correctional Center which caused $5.3 million in damage and took more than three hours to contain. Inmates smashed furniture, broke fire sprinklers and started a fire.

Lawmakers hoped that putting the correctional system under independent oversight would help usher in reforms and bring greater transparency to a department long criticized for its secrecy and thwarting of public-records requests.

The five-member commission was set up to guide policy, but a full-time administrator and staff were needed to do the day-to-day work. Per the statute, the administrator is required to conduct an ongoing review of the correctional system. The administrator was given the power to enter and inspect correctional facilities without notice and full access to records within the Department of Public Safety.

The creation of the Hawaii Correctional Systems Oversight Commission came out of 2018 recommendations from a legislative task force that met for two years and was chaired by Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Michael Wilson.

Robert Merce, an attorney and former task force member, called the failure to fund the commission’s staff “shameful.”

“It means that they are trying to do oversight with blinders on, almost,” said Merce. “They don’t have the time or the resources to dig into any of the problems.”

Merce said the pandemic only increased the need to fund the commission’s staff, given the outbreaks of coronavirus in the jails and prisons.

“We had a total crisis, and we couldn’t find $300,000 to help come up with best practices to protect the prisoners,” he said, in reference to the salaries for commission staff. “And what happened? Eight of them are dead and hundreds have been infected.”

The governor’s budget is currently being revised by the Legislature. The House and Senate can add funding items, but the governor can refuse to release the money.

House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke said the corrections commission salaries are among numerous cuts that lawmakers are discovering as they comb through Ige’s proposed budget, including decreased funding for the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, HIV services and tuberculosis treatment.

Luke said the lack of funding for commission staff was “troubling” and might reflect a “philosophical problem” in which the Legislature believes in more oversight of the Public Safety Department and Ige believes in less.