The Women’s Prison Project has set an ambitious goal — and, frankly, a startling one: To reduce Hawaii’s population of women in prison by half in five years, and by 75% in eight years.
How to get from here to there? The prison project — a coalition of 30-plus women with former Gov. Linda Lingle at the forefront — has an approach that appears to give troubled women an improved chance at rehabilitation, and families a better chance of breaking all-too-common cycles of abuse, addiction and crime.
Representatives of the project, meeting with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial board last week, repeated almost as a mantra their bottom line: that women generally reach this stage in the criminal justice system via a different path from men, yet are forced into the same strictures. “Women are invisible and forgotten in a system designed by men for other men, particularly violent men,” said Meda Chesney-Lind, a criminologist whose focus includes gender issues.
Chesney-Lind joins a roster of professionals from criminal justice, education and government backgrounds, as well as — importantly — community organizations that labor to support at-risk women and families. Proving their understanding of the process and their connections in the right places, they brought 12 bills to the Legislature this session, with almost all still moving through.
They say the situation has been studied repeatedly over the decades and now requires action. They make a persuasive case. In particular, they cite the Resolution 85 Task Force on Prison Reform, which in 2019 made specific recommendations to the Legislature. Chapter 10, a section on female inmates, serves as the model for the Women’s Prison Project initiatives, calling for legislative mandates to ensure action.
Lingle admits to shortcomings on this issue during her own administration, but she doesn’t intend to let this slip between the cracks going forward. “We are not going away. Not this time and not again.”
The majority of women in the justice system are nonviolent, low-risk offenders, the prison project says, and got in trouble through risky relationships or after suffering abuse. Many would be better served, with better outcomes for the community, if their time was served outside prison in programs that address their core problems.
Pending legislation includes interventions before, during and after incarceration:
>> House Bill 2312: Create a women’s corrections implementation commission, charged with making a reality of the Chapter 10 recommendations. These include diverting low-risk offenders from prison into residential rehabilitation settings, subsidized housing, restorative justice and educational programs.
>> Senate Bill 2771: Require the Department of Public Safety to develop a means of assessing female inmates before trial, separate from tools used to assess men, as their risks of reoffending and their treatment needs are different.
>> SB2641: Fund residential programs that keep children with their mothers. Well over half of women inmates are custodial parents; separating them from their children is a source of trauma on both sides and forces many minors into foster care.
>> HB2257: Create “planning circles” that help inmates prepare for life after release, including finding housing and jobs, but also repairing rifts in personal relationships. The circles are meant to ease the transition and reduce chances of recidivism — which now stands at 50% for the Women’s Community Correctional Center.
On average, Lingle said, 200 women are incarcerated at WCCC, each inmate costing the state $70,000 annually to house. That’s a hefty amount that could be more efficiently spent on outside rehabilitation. At the same time, the smaller number of women compared to men in prison allows for more effective case management, the group said.
Not all of these ideas are entirely new; what this group brings is a centralization of community will, in the hands of an influential group of motivated leaders. Their direct, holistic approach is one our community has long needed to make a difference for this troubled population.
