Arizona prison considers evicting Hawai'i inmates
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief
Some of Hawai'i's most dangerous criminals may be coming home if Arizona approves a plan to kick them out of a privately run prison there.
Escalating violence and gang activity by Hawai'i inmates serving time in one Arizona prison has prompted officials there to consider limiting the types of out-of-state inmates Arizona will accept.
That may mean trouble for Hawai'i, which has had to search for states with empty prison beds that would accept inmates, especially those convicted of crimes such as murder and sexual assault.
Hawai'i pays Corrections Corporation of America about $20 million a year to house 1,100 inmates on the Mainland, including about 520 at the Florence Correctional Facility 45 miles from Phoenix.
One state after another has imposed restrictions on the kinds of out-of-state inmates that companies such as Corrections Corporation of America can import, and that trend may finally force Hawai'i to build a new prison to house its own prisoners, said Ted Sakai, director of the state Department of Public Safety.
"It suggests that we'd better look very carefully at our situation," Sakai said. "I think we're going to have to look at population management within Hawai'i because if this trend continues, it may be just a matter of time for us."
The Advertiser reported earlier this month that state monitors sent to the Florence prison said they found a "facility in turmoil," with a gang of Hawai'i inmates involved in drug smuggling and assaults against prisoners and corrections officers.
Terry L. Stewart, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, said he will ask the Arizona Legislature for new authority over companies such as Corrections Corporation of America in the wake of those reports and concerns about a so-called "rice riot" by Hawai'i inmates Sept. 12.
In that incident, as many as 20 Hawai'i inmates smashed windows, computers, television sets and food carts. The melee allegedly began when an inmate complained about the way his rice was cooked and attacked a corrections officer.
"The incident involving the gangs with Hawaiian inmates was just maybe the straw that broke the donkey's back," Stewart said. "We'd had at least one other fairly serious situation where I was very concerned about what was going on in that institution, and I have no oversight or anything."
Stewart said local police received a 911 call from staff at the prison indicating the inmates had taken hostages, and 60 Arizona corrections officers were put on standby for five hours in case they were needed to help.
When state officials tried to learn more about what was happening inside the prison, "that facility wouldn't talk to them," Stewart said. The incident ended without the help of the state corrections officers, but three Corrections Corporation of America guards were injured in the disturbance, including one who suffered serious head injuries.
Stewart said he isn't sure exactly what restrictions Arizona lawmakers might impose on private prisons, but said he will propose a ban on accepting maximum security inmates from other states.
"We have our own maximum custody inmates," he said. "They are dangerous inmates. Why in the world would we want maximum custody inmates from anywhere else?"
The issue of sex offenders may also come up, Stewart said, because "you would have to wonder, why would a state want sex offenders imported into a private prison, or into the state?"
Sakai said he doesn't know how many Hawai'i inmates now in Florence would be classified as "maximum custody" under Arizona guidelines. Hawai'i considers most of its inmates there to be "medium" custody, but Arizona prison officials might not agree.
However, if Arizona decides to to prohibit Corrections Corporation of America from importing sex offenders, "we're in deep trouble," Sakai said. More than 300 of the Hawai'i inmates serving time at Florence are sex offenders, prison officials said.
Hawai'i officials recently signed off on a new contract with the company that would place about 550 male inmates in Oklahoma, and 550 in Arizona.
If Arizona rejects certain kinds of inmates, "we're going to have to find another place for them," Sakai said. "It would probably be difficult because there aren't too many states that have private prisons without too many restrictions."
Corrections Corporation of America spokesman Steve Owen said the company could not comment on the proposed changes in Arizona law because company officials haven't seen them. In general, he said, "we're not opposed to reasonable legislation so long as it does not impede our ability to meet our customers' needs and conduct business."
The moves considered by Arizona are a familiar story for Hawai'i. The state initially placed inmates in Texas facilities operated by the Bobby Ross Group in 1995, but removed them partly because the Texas Commission on Jail Standards restricted the types of inmates that could be placed there.
When the state considered placing Hawai'i inmates in prisons in Georgia, opponents mobilized and Hawai'i prison officials eventually had to look elsewhere.
A similar discussion about sex offenders in Tennessee was triggered when Hawai'i officials made plans to place inmates there, said Keith Kaneshiro, who ran Hawai'i's prison system from 1996 to 1998.
Corrections Corporation of America also holds Hawai'i inmates in Oklahoma, but that state will not accept sex offenders or prisoners who commit certain types of murders. Other Hawai'i inmates were placed at facilities in Minnesota, but that state won't accept out-of-state inmates unless they are classified as medium custody or lower under Minnesota's inmate classification system, Sakai said.
Other states such as California prohibit private companies from importing out-of-state inmates. Still others, such as Louisiana and Colorado, have few restrictions on the kinds of inmates that can be imported, but don't have facilities that could accommodate Hawai'i inmates, Sakai said.
Kaneshiro said when he initially signed a contract with Corrections Corporation of America in 1998, he intended that housing Hawai'i inmates on the Mainland would be only a temporary solution to crowding in Hawai'i's prisons. Plans were in place to build a new prison, but the state later dropped that effort.
Even in 1998 it was clear other states increasingly would restrict the types of inmates that private companies would be allowed to import, Kaneshiro said. "We cannot keep exporting our inmates and moving them all over the country," he said.
Kaneshiro, a former city prosecutor, said the state needs to build a new prison before the system is forced to release inmates to relieve crowding.
"The problem doesn't get resolved by just sitting around and saying we don't have a plan," he said. "When you start releasing inmates because of overcrowding, you're going back to where we were five or six years ago when we had an increasing crime rate."
Gov. Ben Cayetano has proposed several prison alternatives, including privately or publicly financed projects that were to be built in Hawai'i or on the Mainland.
The Legislature blocked Cayetano's plans, and "it isn't likely he'll be proposing any more," said his communications director, Jackie Kido.
"For now, we will continue to look to privately-run Mainland prisons in states that will accept our overflow," Kido said. "It's less expensive, and we've just encountered too much resistance to building one locally."
State officials estimate it costs about $90 a day to hold an inmate in a state-run facility in Hawai'i. Corrections Corporation of America holds Hawai'i inmates on the Mainland for $50 per day.
In all, the state pays private prison operators on the Mainland about $24 million a year to hold 1,200 men and women
You can reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
