For 30 years, the state has sent incarcerated men to the continent to serve their sentences. However, the Hawaiʻi Legislature is weighing options to bring back hundreds who are currently held at the Saguaro Correctional Center, a private prison in Arizona.
Jamee Mahealani Miller is the co-executive director of a ʻEkolu Mea Nui, a Native Hawaiian-led criminal justice organization. She visited Saguaro last week and spoke to people incarcerated there as part of her study on the impact of cultural programming in the corrections system.
“The ones that have been there 20, 30 years … they were told this was only supposed to be a three-year pilot project, a temporary fix,” she said.
“I mentioned exiled because that's their words, they feel that they were put out and just forgotten and in exile, and that they don't really see themselves coming home because they don't think the state cares about them.”
Hawaiʻi began incarcerating people out of state in 1995 as a temporary solution to alleviate overcrowding. Thirty years later, about 800 men are still incarcerated at Saguaro Correctional Center – a private prison.
Mahealani Miller, whose family member was incarcerated at Saguaro, explained that being held out of state makes reintegration more difficult when the person returns.
“When people are separated from family, culture, and community support, it undermines rehabilitation and increases instability upon return,” she said.
“If you imagine someone in your family who is incarcerated and goes away for whatever reason, already there is that tension. And so in order to work out that tension, so they can have successful reentry, you have to establish some kind of reconnection. And when they are thousands of miles away, most families are not even able to afford a phone call.”
However, a measure introduced by Rep. Jeanné Kapela would mandate the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to meet benchmarks to return them to Hawaiʻi facilities.
The department would have to move a quarter of those currently held at Saguaro back to Hawaiʻi by July 2029. Then, starting in 2031, at least 5% of people held out of state would need to return each year.
“We've been talking about the need to bring these Native Hawaiian, Indigenous Pacific Islander men back from Arizona or from any other private prison location that they're being held at on the continent, back to Hawaiʻi,” Kapela said. “But the department hasn't made the steps necessary to try and actually address the issue.”
In 2019, California formally ended its practice of holding people in out-of-state private prisons.
Capacity as a limiting factor
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Director Tommy Johnson explained that there isn’t enough space available at Halawa Correctional Facility, the state’s only medium security prison for men. As of last week, the facility was utilizing about 80% of its 992-person operational capacity.
Johnson explained that the department can’t control how many people are sent to them, and that if the prison becomes too overcrowded, they could be subject to intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“I can't tell you how many people we are going to have in custody two days from now, more or less two years from now, or three years from now,” he said.
“So to pass legislation to order the Department of Public Safety to reduce the population on the mainland by 25% when, one, we don't know what that population will be, and two, we don't know what our in-state capacity will be — I think it's irresponsible. It doesn't take into account that we don't control the population numbers.”
However, Hawaiʻi Correctional System Oversight Commission Chair Mark Patterson disagreed. He explained that he was able to do it when he was the warden of the Women's Community Correctional Center, located near Kailua on Oʻahu, in 2007.
It took two years to bring all 175 women back under Hawaiʻi jurisdiction following reports of assaults at facilities on the continent.
Patterson explained that the department needs to look at the flow of those incarcerated through the system. He points to the state’s two minimum security prisons: Kulani Correctional Facility in Hilo and Waiawa Correctional Facility on Oʻahu. Neither is more than half full.
“We don't need 800 beds for 800 inmates. You just need to start flowing the inmates through, and it'll take no more than two to three years to bring them all home,” Patterson said.
“We looked at the women who were being housed at that time, and I said, ‘How come she's here? How much more time does she have? Ask for a reduction of her minimum,’ There are so many gates within the system that you can move inmates through, but you have to be intentionally focused on it.”
The department commissioned a classification study to see if it is designating people into higher levels of custody than is necessary. Johnson explained that they are in the process of testing the new methodology, and he expects the final results to be in by early fall.
“There will be some offenders whose classification level will change earlier than the current system. But you're not talking about hundreds and hundreds,” he said.
“You're talking about maybe 150 or so might change depending on their misconduct history in the facilities. I want to stress that DCR wants to bring all the inmates home, but we do not have the medium capacity bed space to do so.”
New prison and systemic change
Johnson maintains that the state would need to build a new medium-security prison to accommodate all of those who have been sent out of state.
The department estimates that it would cost about $800 million. That would be in addition to its estimated $1 billion plan to replace the overcrowded and deteriorated Oʻahu Community Correctional Center that mainly holds people pre-trial.
Johnson emphasized that in order to decrease the number of people held at Halawa, it will take more than just changes to his department. He wanted to see more diversion programs and policies that would keep people out of the corrections facilities who don’t pose a risk to public safety.
“That's much cheaper than keeping them incarcerated. And then if they do come to us, our job should then be how do we then look at getting these people back out who don't pose a risk, who are nonviolent, to get services and programs — that we have jurisdiction over,” he said.
“So it's a system-wide issue, and I think everyone's looking at DCR as the bad guy, but if you think about it, DCR simply has to take everybody sent to us.”
Some people don’t want to return to Halawa Correctional Facility
Nearly 180 people at Saguaro Correctional Center signed papers saying they do not want to be returned to Hawaiʻi until they are able to be released back into the community. Those who sign also decline to participate in programs, and their classification stays at medium.
Criminal justice advocate and civil rights lawyer Carrie Ann Shirota explained that some people prefer Saguaro over Halawa because they think the conditions at Halawa are worse, because the facility is old, and that at Saguaro, they say the staff sometimes treats them better.
“I think it's a false sort of position to put people into Saguaro versus Halawa because we have a system and we do not need to have people just go from Saguaro to Halawa,” she said.
“We can be moving people from Halawa to Kulani to Waiawa to the neighbor islands, and it doesn't mean they need to be stuck at Halawa. And I think that if we just sort of pitted one against the other, we're never going to be able to make these systemic changes that are needed while also addressing issues at Halawa.”
Johnson pointed to deferred maintenance at its facilities, which continues to increase costs.
“We haven't been appropriately funded for decades and decades,” he said. “I think what the policy makers have to understand is that corrections is not sexy. And we compete with the need for new schools and new roads and new hospitals, but it's a necessary evil that has to be funded appropriately if you want to have better outcomes for the inmates.”
Johnson added that it costs $125 a day to hold someone at Saguaro, compared to about $330 a day to hold someone in Hawaiʻi — largely due to higher costs in Hawaiʻi compared to Arizona.
However, Shirota emphasized that Saguaro’s operator, CoreCivic, is a for-profit private prison company that has profited significantly from increased immigration enforcement.
“If taxpayers in Hawaiʻi and the governor and lawmakers want to continue to invest in CoreCivic, then I think that they need to own it and they need to state it,” she said.
“But if they are in alignment with … communities outraged by what's happening in these federal detention centers and the expansion of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], then to be consistent, we need to end these contracts and bring our people home.”
The measure passed out of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Wednesday. During the discussion, Committee Chair David Tarnas pushed the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to come up with a plan and timeline to return the incarcerated men at Saguaro to Hawaiʻi.
“I think it's clear that there have been policies and procedures within the department that have prevented this from working and not just laws, policies, and procedures, which you have control over,” he said.
“I'm very concerned that this is taking way too long. … Personally, I think we need to see better performance from the department to rehabilitate people so you can live up to the other half of your name.”
Hawaiʻi Public Radio exists to serve all of Hawai’i, and it’s the people of Hawai’i who keep us independent and strong. Donate today. Mahalo for your support.
