Editorial: No good reason to delay new jail

It’s bad — very bad — and only getting worse with every passing year when nothing is built.

This bleak assessment applies precisely to the decades-old impasse over the conditions of the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC). One original structure still in use was built in 1916 — and even reconstruction of most of the 16-acre Kalihi site dates to 1975.

The state Legislature has balked at fully funding a present-day redevelopment proposal, some lawmakers pointing to a need first for more criminal justice reforms that are aimed at reducing how many people the jail would house.

And now Gov. Josh Green and his administration must secure enough funds, under budgetary constraint, to keep improvements on track. The state Council on Revenues’ latest financial projection has come in at about $270 million less than what had been expected at the close of the legislative session, which adds to the challenge for OCCC.

Still, Green seems inclined to pursue the needed funding, fortunately.

“The prison services that we have are outdated — we have to be more humane,” the governor said Friday on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” webcast.

“We’re going to have to get there on that (OCCC) project,” Green added. “So I’m a little reluctant to start other large projects until we’ve dealt with what’s fundamental to society here.”

Agreed. There is every reason to move ahead on a new facility, work that can advance a more restorative criminal justice system by providing the capacity for better programs.

Conceptual plans project a facility with 1,012 detention beds and 393 pre-release beds, compared with the 982 at the existing jail. The census on Thursday was 1,076, 112% over capacity, said a Department of Public Safety (DPS) public information officer.

A new jail can be designed with enough flexibility to accommodate a smaller population, as better rehabilitation and a more enlightened approach to pretrial detention of defendants are implemented. DPS officials already assured lawmakers that the project could proceed in phases, starting smaller and expanding if needed.

How the existing OCCC has languished for so long in its current state is a disgrace, one that was the focus of a federal consent decree, lasting between 1985 and 2000. That resulted from a class-action lawsuit requiring the state to address chronic overcrowding and general deterioration.

Now that money allotted for the long-stalled replacement facility has been hung up again, state officials in charge are worried that the U.S. Department of Justice could intervene once more.

And that would further complicate progress toward goals on which everyone should agree: building a facility designed to deliver programs and services that can reduce recidivism.

The emphasis on restoration and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system is now a matter of state policy, so that makes sense. After all, in a recent reorganization initiative, DPS will be renamed the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, effective in January.

Restorative-justice advocates assert that OCCC is for people who have committed lesser offenses, as well as many who are in detention even before there is a trial to establish their guilt or innocence. Virtually all will come back into the community — a community that is best served if those sent to jail are given the help they need to live productively among their neighbors.

Unless the Green administration is able to accelerate the planning for the project now, DPS officials are concerned that everything will grind to a halt for another year.

Hawaii lawmakers included $10 million in House Bill 300, the budget bill now on the governor’s desk, to continue planning and design work for a new jail, but the funds won’t be available until mid-2024. DPS had sought $25 million split over the next two fiscal years.

A significant slowdown would end up costing more money as construction prices escalate, said Tommy Johnson, DPS director. He added that a new, more efficient facility would run with fewer staffers and help cut overtime costs.

Critics of the new-jail plan, including reform advocate Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons, argue that the state has dragged its feet on reforms and has pushed ahead on this project without sufficient community input.

Since the 2018 report by a legislative reform task force, the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission was created and staffed, an important advance. Progress on other steps has been slow, undeniably.

But slow-walking the OCCC relocation and rebuild is no way to improve conditions, either. DPS last year contracted with the University of Hawaii Community Design Center to gain public input and develop alternative facility designs. It’s an initiative that’s long overdue, but welcome all the same.

Ultimately only this kind of forward-looking collaboration will yield better outcomes for the short-term inhabitants of OCCC — and the community that they will rejoin before long.