The problems of the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) are old, almost as old as the 47-year-old facility itself. Just nine years after OCCC opened in 1975, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit challenging its overcrowding and inadequate safety and programs.

There have been improvements over the years, but the state has been unable to get ahead of the deterioration, despite subsequent federal interventions. The organization’s most recent calls for review were made more broadly for the state corrections system as a whole.

These include a 2017 complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice seeking more investigations into persistent overcrowding and poor conditions. In 2021, the ACLU filed a court brief urging the Hawaii Supreme Court to continue oversight more specifically of the system’s management of COVID-19, given the chronically over-capacity jails and prisons.

With such a history of substandard conditions at OCCC, this seems the wrong moment simply to slam the brakes on a project that aims, at long last, to replace the facility in a new location.

Meanwhile, the Kalihi community would gain from redevelopment of the jail site, and should not be forced to wait indefinitely for that to happen.

A middle path needs to be found between the course laid out toward a new, larger jail and the campaign for something that’s also desirable: reforms that keep more people out of jail for lesser crimes.

This is a quandary that the Legislature should solve rather than simply hold funds hostage until reforms can have their effect.

Already the state House has stripped the budget proposal of the $15 million Gov. David Ige had requested to develop a detailed request for proposals to replace OCCC. That removal was led by state Rep. Sylvia Luke, who wields enormous power as chair of the House Finance Committee. Luke is also a candidate for lieutenant governor, and has campaigned on putting reforms ahead of a new facility.

What Luke and others want to see first is the adoption of new policies and programs to keep people out of jail, so that a larger facility isn’t needed.

“Before moving ahead with plans for a costly new jail, Hawaii must dramatically change its approach to corrections,” said Carrie Ann Shirota, ACLU of Hawai‘i policy director, in testimony on the now-stalled House Bill 2516, which would bar planning, design or construction of a new jail unless the Hawaii Correctional Systems Oversight Commission participates.

The intent behind this hesitancy is understandable, especially with broader reform proposals still languishing. One of them would discourage cash bail. The argument is made, with good cause, that too many people who are poor are arrested on a relatively minor charge, are unable to post bail and then languish in jail.

This must change, and at a faster pace than the Legislature seems able to muster.

There’s no good reason to build a jail that is larger than necessary, especially if reforms will reduce the inmate count. But what happens this year to those now incarcerated in a crumbling OCCC? If the answer is “nothing,” that is unjust — to the low-income defendants suffering through poor conditions now, and to those who must wait even longer for long-promised reforms.

The state Department of Public Safety has said the plan for a new jail can be adjusted to accommodate a smaller census. Senators will hear the budget bill on Tuesday, and they should hold them to that pledge, insisting on a scaled-down plan for OCCC but providing funds to enable further revisions.

What they should not do is kick this can down the road until, at some indefinite point, reforms can pass and take hold. A new jail is already so long overdue.