Low inmate forecasts at OCCC could affect costs of future jail

The average daily inmate population at Oahu Community Correctional Center is forecast to fall from 1,316 in 2019 to 788 in 2032, which will have profound implications for the planning of a future OCCC, including its size and long-term operational costs.

“It’s a very significant matter,” said former prisons director Ted Sakai, who serves on the Hawai‘i Correctional System Oversight Commission. “Everybody knows how expensive this facility could be, and cost is something that just scares everybody, including the Legislature. … The impact (of OCCC’s prison population) will be not only on the cost of constructing the facility, but the long-term cost of operating the facility.”

Projections for OCCC’s population were presented to the commission as plans continue for a new OCCC on the site of the underutilized state Animal Quarantine Station in Halawa, as mandated by the Legislature.

The number of inmates held at OCCC already was falling before the COVID-19 pandemic, and is expected to continue to drop for a variety of reasons, including Hawaii’s overall resident population and potential legal reforms such as diverting defendants from detention at OCCC and even keeping nonviolent felons from incarceration, according to a report to the commission by consultant Pulitzer/Bogard & Associates LLC.

The report goes into granular detail about OCCC’s inmate population, and several commission members said that it represents critical information about how judicial reforms could affect Hawaii’s jail and prison populations, along with how to proceed with replacing the current and outdated OCCC in Kalihi.

When it was built over phases, primarily in the 1980s, OCCC was designed for a capacity of 628 beds, but has an operational capacity of 954 beds, according to the report.

In February, state officials issued a relatively unusual “Request for Interest” asking construction contractors, financiers and investors around the world to come up with innovative ways to pay for and build what is hoped to be a cost-effective and efficient OCCC that ideally would represent a model for future state construction.

The current plan is for the state Animal Quarantine Station to give up 40 acres of its underutilized Halawa land to make way for a new OCCC on the eastern side of the property.

The new OCCC is planned to house 1,044 male detainees and 288 pre-release inmates. A detention facility is expected to cover 376,000 square feet, and a pre-­release facility is planned at 98,000 square feet. OCCC currently has 950 beds, according to the Department of Public Safety.

The new jail is expected to include separate housing for inmates and detainees with mental health issues as well as space for education, library, treatment and religious programs; and work furlough programs.

Curtiss J. Pulitzer, principal of Pulitzer/Bogard & Associates, told the Hawai‘i Correctional System Oversight Commission on Thursday that OCCC’s new population forecasts mean that the original “master plan assumptions are being revisited” and likely will lead to new square footage and operating costs.

State Rep. Sonny Gana­den, vice chairman of the House Corrections, Military and Veterans Committee, told the Hawai‘i Correctional System Oversight Commission that the OCCC inmate forecasts will lead to profound discussions, most notably the cost of a new OCCC.

“This is the first thing that comes up,” Ganaden said. “This is a major concern to the public and the Legislature.”

Among the key questions, Ganaden said, is, “How can we right-size OCCC?”

OCCC, originally called the Oahu Prison, was built in 1916 on its current 16-acre site in Kalihi, bordered by Dillingham Boulevard and Puuhale Road. One of the original structures is still in use.

When OCCC was redeveloped in 1975, it was intended to house long-term inmates and not designed to separate detainees with mental health issues, which increases risks for both detainees and corrections staff, according to the state Department of Accounting and General Services, which oversees state buildings.

Today OCCC holds inmates awaiting trial or sentencing in 1st Circuit Court for misdemeanor crimes and those with up to two years or so left on their sentences — a group that DAGS called “a short-term, high-turnover population” that was not expected back in 1975.

Plans to build a new Oahu jail in Halawa are further along than ever. Gov. David Ige previously told the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser’s Spotlight livestream show that he hopes government construction helps stimulate the local economy and keeps construction workers employed.