Prison compliance
within state’s reach

Sending 600 men to
mainland prisons could release
the state from court
monitoring

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The transfer of an extra 600 male inmates to mainland prisons sometime this year could release the state from 13 years of court-supervised monitoring, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney predicts.

ACLU attorney Dan Foley said his organization and the state attorney general's office last week submitted to the federal court an order that released the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua from the 1985 consent decree. That order was signed by U.S. District Judge Samuel King on Friday.

That means only the Oahu Community Correction Center in Kalihi remains covered by the court monitoring program, imposed in 1985 after the ACLU sued the state to improve conditions at both prisons, Foley said.

Foley said the state now plans to send 600 male inmates to mainland prisons, joining nearly 600 who were sent to Texas nearly three years ago.

Although state Public Safety Director Keith Kaneshiro won't say when the next batch of male inmates will be sent out of state because of "security reasons," indications are that the move could take place within the next few weeks.

That is because beginning tomorrow, Kaneshiro will have $12.5 million approved by this year's Legislature to ship more inmates to mainland prisons to alleviate crowded conditions.

Kaneshiro told lawmakers earlier this year that he was considering privately operated prisons in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Mississippi.

The nearly 600 inmates were sent to Texas prisons in Spur and Newton in December 1995, originally operated by Austin-based Bobby Ross Group. Since then, Correctional Services Corp. with headquarters in Sarasota, Fla., have take over the operations of Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur and the Newton Community Correctional Center.

Foley said OCCC is now about 200 inmates over the limit set by the 1985 court order, which set the ceiling at 890.

But the transfer of another 600 inmates this year would give the state the opportunity to shift its male inmate population from OCCC to the Halawa Correctional Facility and "get the population at OCCC down within a month," Foley said.

"Conceivably, that could bring the state into compliance with the consent decree and we would be willing to sign off," Foley said.

Gov. Ben Cayetano has promised to pick a Big Island prison site as early as the end of this month with the prime locations being the expansion of the Kulani Correctional Facility or state-owned land near Saddle Road in the Pohakuloa Training Area. It will take at least three years to build the 2,300-bed medium-security prison.

Kaneshiro said 84 beds are being built at the women's prison, which now houses 200 inmates, and construction is expected to be completed by early next year.

Kaneshiro said it's been his goal since he took over as corrections head 11/2 years ago to upgrade the state's prison system. "We've put in more beds, improved programs, improved the layout at Olomana and it's a much cleaner facility today."

Although there were initial complaints from the 64 women who were shipped to Crystal Center Community Correctional Center in May 1996, Foley said most of the problems have been resolved.