Posted on: Thursday, May 10, 2001

Editorial
Far-off prisons present weighty responsibilities

The state must not get the idea that because it has succeeded in exporting the bulk of its prison crowding problem to the Mainland it is home free.

The state is every bit as responsible for the safety and well-being of homesick inmates chilling out in Mainland prisons as it is for those double-bunked here.

There was little doubt as to what that responsibility meant at Halawa Correctional Facility earlier this week, when the state reached a $250,000 settlement with the family of a 26-year-old inmate found dead in his cell two years ago. There have been a disturbing number of such questionable deaths in Hawai'i prisons over the years.

People who assume that, because prisons are privately run — or because they are someplace other than Hawai'i and will be more efficient and humane — should have a look at Florence Correctional Center in Arizona.

Troubling incidents there include inmate gangs, serious beatings of several inmates, a riot last September and the death of an inmate April 16 from what prison officials suspect was a drug-induced heart attack.

Hawai'i Public Safety Director Ted Sakai said he's pleased that the company that runs the Florence facility, Corrections Corporation of American, quickly replaced the warden there when the problems became apparent.

We have to agree that it takes a great deal more anguish than that to result in the replacement of a warden here.

Corrections Corp. holds about 1,100 male inmates from Hawai'i, at a cost this year of $16 million to $17 million. By and large, the company has done a good job with our inmates.

But Sakai said the state's monitoring team turned up some problems. That's the key — the state must monitor Corrections Corp. every bit as carefully as it monitors its own prison operation.