Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Director Tommy Johnson has been warning that the state needs to fix its run-down correctional facilities or face lawsuits over deteriorating conditions. It now appears the system is finally making a dent in the problem.
The new budget drafted by the Legislature last month includes $94 million to make repairs to old correctional facilities and fund planning efforts for proposed new jails on Oahu and Kauai.
The plans for new jails are controversial, with critics arguing the state should find ways to divert minor offenders away from jail instead of building bigger new jails to house more people. But the volume of work underway shows the system is moving to cope with overcrowding.
The state expects to soon open a badly needed 48-bed addition to the packed Hawaii Community Correctional Center on the Big Island, where one Circuit Court judge last year described conditions as “atrocious.”
Meanwhile, the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua expects to open a 172-bed housing unit later this year, and renovations of the 65-bed Hookipa Cottage at WCCC should also be finished this year.
Those WCCC projects will allow the state to move all female inmates out of the Oahu Community Correctional Center, which should help ease the overcrowded conditions at that facility.
For years inmates have been forced to sleep on cell floors at OCCC because of overcrowding, and as of Monday the facility was holding 1,061 prisoners, including 116 women. OCCC is the state’s largest jail, but its operating capacity is only 954.
Legislature Backed Governor’s Requests
This year Gov. Josh Green’s proposed budget sought $89.5 million for new prison and jail construction projects, and lawmakers provided at least partial funding for most of those requests.
They included $18 million for new fencing at Halawa Correctional Facility, which Johnson said was urgently needed. The existing fencing has been in place since 1985, and “when you look at it, it’s falling apart on the back side, we’re propping it up with two-by-fours.”
Lawmakers also provided $16 million to expand the kitchen and educational facilities at the women’s prison in Kailua, and $22.5 million to start construction of a consolidated health care facility at Halawa.
The department had requested $45 million for the Halawa medical facility, and Johnson said corrections officials will now have to divide that project into two phases.
The most controversial projects are $10 million to continue planning for a new jail for Oahu, and $20 million lawmakers provided this year to choose a site and possibly acquire land for a new jail on Kauai. Johnson said the existing Kauai jail is in a flood zone.
The proposal for a new Oahu jail has been a particular flashpoint, with critics arguing for years the state should divert more people into treatment and rehabilitation programs instead of housing them in a big and expensive new jail.
Johnson has estimated the jail will cost $900 million, meaning it will rank among the largest publicly funded projects in state history. Corrections officials do not believe the Legislature will ever provide full funding for the project, and instead hope to hire a developer to finance, build and maintain the facility.
The state has already spent nearly $10 million planning the project, and Green provided another $4.5 million for planning last year.
Lawmakers have also appropriated another $10 million for the fiscal year starting July 1 for planning, procurement and selection of a developer for the Oahu jail, and Johnson said the state will solicit bids or proposals for the project in mid-2025.
Opposition To New Jail Construction
Carrie Ann Shirota, policy director for the ACLU of Hawaii, said her organization has no quarrel with maintenance projects for correctional facilities, but opposes the plans for new jails.
The concern is the state continues to invest in plans and consultants to expand the network of prisons and jails “without investing what we know works to reduce the population through data-driven strategies that have been successful elsewhere.”
In recent years the Kauai Community Correctional Center has not been severely overcrowded, she said, and this week the inmate population was below its operating capacity. Shirota credited progressive policies by the county prosecutors on that island for limiting the jail population in recent years.
“Is this the best use of resources for the people of Kauai, who actually have been asking for more beds for behavioral health and treatment?” she asked.
As for the new Oahu jail, Shirota said there needs to be an accounting of how money has been spent on planning that project over the many years it has been in the works.
She also said it raises “red flags” that Department of Budget and Finance Director Luis Salaveria, who is a former lobbyist for the private prison company CoreCivic, is helping to plan for the procurement of the new jail contractor.
She said money for the Kauai and Oahu projects was included in the state budget with no meaningful public debate this year. But Shirota said other states have demonstrated that jail populations can be reduced without endangering public safety or triggering an increase in crime rates.
But Johnson contends that “we have to do something. For those who say build a smaller facility, if we build a 600-bed facility and we’ve got 1,000 people, we are building into inhumane, overcrowded conditions. We can’t do that.
“I have to stress this: For those who say don’t build anything, for those who say build a smaller facility with 600 beds, for those who say we should put the money into other things, I have to tell you, parts of OCCC are 110 years old,” Johnson said.
“It’s only a matter of time before the (U.S. Department of Justice) comes knocking on the door” to force the state to address conditions at the jail, he said.
Original article found at: https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/05/lawmakers-commit-94m-to-fix-deteriorat...