State’s new prison will
be built at Kulani

The governor said he's
looking at two parcels of land
the state owns outside of Hilo

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

After months of deliberations, Gov. Ben Cayetano has decided that the state's new 2,300-bed medium-security prison should be built at Kulani near Hilo.

Cayetano said he is looking at two parcels of land about 16 to 17 miles outside of Hilo that are owned by the state.

"Cost and the impact on the environment will be among the deciding factors in choosing between the two," Cayetano said.

Kathleen Racuya-Markrich, Cayetano's news secretary, said she didn't know how long the assessment will take or when the state hopes to break ground on a project that could take as many as three years to complete.

She said the sites are off the Hawaii Belt Road, and "there is nothing there now."

She said infrastructure such as water, sewage, and electricity lines would have to be built.

In the past, the Sierra Club has expressed concern regarding the expansion of the 160-bed Kulani Correctional Facility because the forest surrounding the minimum security facility is home to six endangered bird species, seven endangered or rare plants, and the endangered hoary bat.

The Kulani facility is at 5,000-foot elevation and is on the east rift zone of Mauna Loa, which most recently erupted in 1984. Lava from that eruption came within eight miles of the prison.

Racuya-Markrich said she didn't know the exact location of the two sites, but Cayetano said last month that one parcel he is considering is about 4,000 feet above sea level and about 1-1/2 miles from the Kulani facility.

He said there is less likelihood that a prison there would threaten any endangered species.

Keith Kaneshiro, State Public Safety Director, said the sites being considered are farther down from the current prison.

"If the lava comes to that site, it's going to overflow right to Hilo," Kaneshiro said.

Initially, Cayetano proposed building a prison, badly needed to ease the crowded conditions at Hawaii's eight facilities, in Leeward Oahu and at Kau on the Big Island. In each instance, he backed away after running into community opposition.

He said the Kulani site is favored by a majority of the people on the Big island, citing some surveys showing a margin of 65 percent.

In making the announcement, Cayetano said the state will continue to add new beds, with 200 planned for the 184-bed Waiawa Correctional Facility.

Next January, the state will add 84 beds at the Women's Community Correctional Center, boosting its capacity beyond the current 174 inmates.

There will be further expansion at the Oahu Community Correctional Center with the completion of a 168-bed cellblock next summer. Currently, OCCC has a population of 1,179 inmates, but it is only supposed to hold 833 inmates.

Even with the transfer Wednesday of 308 inmates to Tennessee and Oklahoma -- which brought the total of Hawaii inmates serving time on the mainland to 900, including 64 women -- Hawaii's prisons are beyond capacity. There are 3,900 inmates in a system designed to hold 3,024.

Nestor Garcia, House Public Safety Committee chairman, said Cayetano's announcement is well timed.

"After yesterday's critical report, frankly, it only underscores the need to build a prison in our own backyard, so we can monitor the situation and not allow conditions to reach the proportions they allegedly did in Texas," Garcia said.

He was referring to a report by the U.S. Justice Department that said a Texas jail which houses 100 inmates from Hawaii, and was the scene of a riot in 1997 where a Montana convict was killed, is in violation of inmates' constitutional rights.

The federal report said the Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, which until recently was managed by the Austin-based Bobby Ross Group, "is not adequately designed or operated for the kind of prisoners who have been confined there."