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Lawmakers to
consider privatizing
Hawaii prisons
Rep. Garcia favors building a
By Lori Tighe
facility here with a focus on
treatment for drugs
Star-BulletinState legislators today were to begin discussing privatizing prisons in Hawaii with options such as hydroponic gardens or a drug treatment center.
"The governor explicitly stated if you want a prison in the state you have to privatize it. I said fine," said House Public Safety Chairman Nestor Garcia (D, Waipahu).
Garcia wants to keep the prison here in Hawaii and focus it on drug treatment.
"I'm no longer interested in another Halawa (High/Medium Security Facility). I want to build a treatment center," Garcia said yesterday.
An estimated 80 percent of Hawaii prisoners have a substance abuse problem, according to state officials. Yet less than 10 percent receive drug treatment.
"I want to stop the revolving door," Garcia said.
He doesn't mean building "a Betty Ford treatment center or a resort," he said, but rather a prison that has a primary goal to treat substance abuse, similar to several mainland prisons.
Garcia said the state must resolve overcrowding problem in the prisons.
The contract with mainland prisons ends in a year and a half.
The governor's argument to send more Hawaii inmates to the mainland centers on cost, Garcia said. It costs $42 a day to care for a prisoner on the mainland, compared to $100 a day in Hawaii.
"It's not just a dollars and cents argument. If you can break the cycle, you win in the long run," Garcia said.
The last murder-suicide in Ewa Beach and suicide in Nanakuli involved people with drug problems, Garcia added.
"I'd like to think we can win over support for it," he said. "It's not strictly a criminal issue. It's a public health issue."
Sam Monet, owner of Greenhouse USA in Honolulu, wants to build a hydroponic greenhouse next to a privately run Hawaii prison. Prisoners can learn a skill and market a product to help pay victim restitution.
He was to present his idea to the committee at today's hearing.
"The prisoners get out of their cells and work around plants and music. It's a positive reinforcement," Monet said.
The prisoners learn how to make a hydroponic garden, one of the country's fastest growing agricultural markets. The farming technique grows vegetables, such as vine tomatoes, without soil.
"I want to put an end to the cycle of prison, release, crime and prison again. Our system has an educational aspect." An inmate who works three years in the greenhouse leaves with a growers second-class certificate.
An activist in native Hawaiian issues, Monet said native Hawaiians make up about 70 percent of the state's prison population, yet only 19 percent of the population.
"If we're going to prison, we're going to be treated well, not like hell, and when we get out we want to have job skills."
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