Incarceration is not
the only solution to
fighting crimeTreating drug use crisis as
By Nestor R. Garcia
a public health problem may ease
prison overcrowdingTHE article on drug courts in your Nov. 11 issue served to underscore only the obvious: we as a community need to spend more time, discussion and dollars on rehabilitation programs that work at reducing the core problems of crime, rather than submit to our fear of rehabilitation as somehow being "soft on crime."
Hawaii leads the nation in locking up criminals. According to the U.S. Justice Department, our state had the largest increase in growth of our adult prison population -- 23 percent -- in 1997.
Even with our transfers of inmates to the mainland (some 1,100 inmates from Hawaii are incarcerated in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Minnesota), and despite our efforts at increasing our present prison capacity by more than 700 beds, we still do not have the space to house our steady stream of inmates.
And even as I advocated these solutions to overcrowding, coupled with my support for a new 2,300-bed medium-security prison on the Big island, the sobering and prevailing view is that we cannot build our way out of the overcrowding problem.
A recent forum held at Central Union Church sought to further explore another approach to the problem of prison overcrowding, one compounded by the growing number of prisoners who suffer from drug abuse.
Perhaps solutions can be reached if we treat the drug crisis as more of a public health problem, rather than just a criminal justice problem.
Dubbed "Community Solutions to Hawaii Prison Problems," the forum also sought to increase awareness of prison issues, and to involve more of the community to get involved in the discussions, as well as in the decisions to address these issues.
There was much discussion on intermediate sanctions, such as Hawaii's success with drug court, to help relieve prison overcrowding. The more than 250 who attended the forum also discussed issues such as the over-representation of Hawaiians and other Polynesians in our prisons, the economic and social costs of transferring inmates to the mainland, and the myriad problems faced by women inmates.
I understand the need for prisons. We need to be protected from those who are violent, whether they violate our person or our property. And I certainly do not apologize for supporting the very same measures outlined previously at increasing our prison capacity.
But can over-reliance on harsher punishment and longer prison sentences actually help to reduce crime and recidivism rates? And when you look simply at the pocketbook issues, how can I explain the need for even more prison space, and more tax dollars to supply the beds, when there doesn't seem to be more attention paid as to why there is an ever-increasing supply of inmates?
Even those who argue that our crime rates have decreased or plateaued because of get-tough measures cannot dispute the fact we have failed to substantially reduce the number of criminals with substance abuse problems from going through the revolving door at our prisons.
In the face of all of the arguments, research and statistics, three facts remain:
1) More than 80 percent of our prison population suffers from substance abuse.
2) A little more than 30 percent receives drug treatment.
3) Of all of those who are admitted to prison in 1995-96, nearly half were for parole or probation violations, and 90 percent of these were for technical violations like failing a drug test, not because they committed a new "crime."
Finally, one need only review the tragic case involving Wayne Kaua and the standoff with police at Pacific Palisades to come up with the same question that your Nov. 3 editorial raised: Could more have been done to help him?
His case is moot now. But we can certainly do something to help others, by first acknowledging that drug abuse is a public health problem, a problem that is contributing almost daily to prison overcrowding, and a problem whose solution must involve more of the community.
The alternative is to continue to rely on locking people up without doing more to help them get off drugs and turn their lives around. The problem is that, in time, most of these people will return to society. And not just to Pacific Palisades.
Nestor R. Garcia is chairman of the state House
Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs.
