Lingle wants to
put youth prisons on
neighbor isles

The governor addresses overcrowding
concerns with a vision to expand
correctional facilities

The state wants to put youth correctional facilities on all the neighbor islands.

Gov. Linda Lingle said she envisions a program with small, community-based facilities that would be secure, but not run by the state -- a departure from the one statewide facility at Kailua.

"We would contract with an organization that not only has a facility, but a program," Lingle said.

Lingle said yesterday she would visit this weekend with seven girls temporarily transferred from the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility to the Salt Lake Valley Detention Center in Utah.

Lingle, who will be returning from a political trip to Arizona to support President Bush during today's debate, said she would stop in Utah to visit with the teenagers and also tour the facility.

"I wanted to meet with the girls personally and find out how they are doing and I want to see the facility," Lingle said.

"It was recommended to us by national experts in the field of detention. I wanted to determine if we would be able to replicate some of their programs or maybe have some of their people talk to us about the facility," Lingle said.

The girls were sent to Utah two weeks ago to open up more space for overcrowded male inmates at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility.

The move had been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii because the state did not have a facility to keep the inmates in state.

The Salt Lake center is an $11.5 million privatized juvenile detention facility, which holds 160 inmates in 120 rooms. It was built in 1997 and is operated by Cornell Corrections, according to Utah officials.

When she returns to Hawaii, Lingle said she wants to hold meetings with service providers, and health department, police, probation and family court officials on all islands.

"What do we do with young people who have to be detained and we don't have the facilities on the neighbor islands?" Lingle asked.

Lois Perrin, an ACLU attorney, said that the girls were upset when she spoke to some of them by phone yesterday because staff members at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility told them they weren't coming back.

"They want to know when they're coming home," Perrin said. "They're hearing that they're not coming home. They hear a different story every week.

"Not having certainty about their status is psychologically abusive."

But Lingle said the girls are expected to return to Hawaii on Nov. 28 as scheduled.

The transfer allowed some of the 54 boys in 30 cells to move into the 10 cells in the girls' unit.

Lingle said one of the problems with the program is that long-term inmates, who are likely to spend up to four years in the youth facility, are mixed in with youngsters who are sentenced to just a weekend or four days confinement.

"You are having a mixing of population that you shouldn't have," Lingle said.

Lingle confident President
Bush will do well today

Expect Gov. Linda Lingle to be among President Bush's cheerleaders today when he meets Sen. John Kerry for the third presidential debate.

Lingle was invited to the debate at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., by the Bush campaign. She is expected to be one of 19 GOP governors at the debate, which is to focus on domestic and economic issues.

The president, Lingle said, should do well today.

"I would urge him to talk about the No Child Left Behind program," she said yesterday.

Lingle also praised Bush's performance in the second debate, although public opinion polls called it either a draw or a win by Kerry.

"I think in the second debate, the president clearly beat John Kerry; I was very pleased with the president's performance in the second debate," she said.