The Reimagining Public Safety in Hawai'i Coalition is a diverse group of Hawai’i based organizations and everyday residents that bring both lived experience and expertise from a range of sectors including public health, the criminal legal system, economic revitalization, restorative justice, police oversight and accountability, mental health, street medicine and harm reduction, among others. The coalition is working to transform Hawaii’s safety system away from policing and incarceration toward an intersectional public health and wellness based approach to community safety. This includes advancing policies that reduce incarceration through deploying non-police responders, diversion, and addressing the root causes of poverty and crime.
The Reimagining Public Safety coalition is driving investment into upstream solutions that disrupt the incarceration pipeline, provide people with real opportunities to succeed, and minimize the need for policing because communities are strong, resourced, and thriving.
The Coalition is committed to racial justice and equity, and acknowledges that Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and African Americans are disparately impacted by our criminal legal system in Hawai‘i. Members of the coalition are working daily to advance community based solutions that are responsive to the unique cultural, historical, and political landscape in Hawai‘i.
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We appreciate the report issued by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) and agree with the bottom-line conclusion that we need to focus on decarceration before any conversation continues about replacing OCCC. You can find and read their report here: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/PPI_OCCC_Memo.pdf
The Reimagining Public Safety (RPS) Coalition seeks to transform Hawaii’s safety system away from policing and incarceration toward an intersectional, public health and wellness-based approach to community safety. This principle guided discussions that ultimately produced the Reimagining Public Safety Budget State of Hawai‘i 2025 Recommendations document below.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, key public safety advocates across the state convened to identify opportunities to dramatically reduce incarceration through diversion and investments to address root causes of crime. These included police, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, service providers, and criminal justice experts.
The recommendations presented in this document reflect broad agreement among justice system advocates and service providers regarding current resource gaps and specific investments that can significantly reduce the cycle of incarceration in Hawai’i. It is the goal of the RPS Coalition to shift spending priorities away from enforcement and incarceration and toward community-focused spending.