Editorial: Let reforms guide new jail planning

As Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) grapples with long-standing overcrowded conditions in rundown and aging facilities, there’s no question that a new jail at a new site is needed.

Even so, among the questions state lawmakers and others still wrestle with is how to gauge future inmate populations. Sensible projections are needed to frame efficiency and flexibility in jail design and, ultimately, to calculate a construction price tag, which will be picked up by taxpayers.

OCCC’s latest operational capacity tops out at about 950 inmates. But in recent years the Kalihi jail has often exceeded that limit. The proposed new facility — as envisioned by the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) — would house 1,044 detainees and 288 pre-release inmates at an underutilized state site in Halawa.

However, a report presented to the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission last week counters that there’s also potential to see the average daily inmate population fall below 800 within the next dozen years. That scenario, according to the report’s author, consultant Pulitzer/Bogard &Associates, hinges on factors such as Hawaii’s overall population continuing a downward trend and adoption of various legal reforms.

Eliminating “cash bail” for certain minor offenses should rank as a reform priority. In Hawaii and many other states, a cash system unfairly penalizes the cash-strapped defendant who poses no apparent flight risk or danger to the public. A 2017 report issued by the ACLU of Hawaii found that in Circuit Court cases where bail was set, fewer than half of criminal defendants were able to pay it, so instead, remained in jail. For many, even several days behind bars can be long enough to lose housing and a job as well as strain family connections.

The oversight commission this year supported a legislative measure that would allow defendants to be released on their own recognizance in cases of nonviolent traffic offenses and some other crimes, with certain exceptions tailored to safeguard public safety.

But Senate Bill 1260 stalled, with opponents arguing that it would allow released suspects to commit more crimes; and others, such as the state Attorney General, seeking a pause while progress toward recently implemented reforms is assessed. One such reform rightly aims to speed the bail process by requiring completion of risk assessments within three days of incarceration. State lawmakers should next year rally support for the deferred bill.

It’s encouraging that the new envisioned jail would include separate housing for inmates and detainees with mental health issues as well as space for education, treatment and religious programs, and work furlough programs — all aimed squarely at preventing recidivism.

The state’s new psychiatric hospital — which mostly houses high-risk patients, most ordered there by the courts — holds potential to further ease OCCC’s capacity-related challenges, as plans are in the works to eventually increase the patient capacity from 144 to 516. Also, plans for the new jail should include following the Hawaii State Hospital’s lead in updating technology as a means to improve surveillance and generate operational cost savings.

Underscoring the need for urgency to alleviate OCCC’s deplorable overcrowded conditions, are troubling COVID-19 outbreaks at the jail and in other corrections facilities. A federal judge’s recent order that DPS must follow its own stated plan for protecting inmates and staffers from coronavirus infection must be a wakeup jolt for the state agency and the Ige administration.

Moving forward, both criminal-justice reformers and those wary of reform need to be part of the planning process. The new report’s projections serve as a good starting point for serious discussions on the so-called right-sizing of OCCC.