Posted on: Friday, May 25, 2001

New Mexico gets inmates from Hawai'i

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

Several dozen Hawai'i inmates who allegedly caused disruptions at an Arizona prison have been temporarily moved to a facility in New Mexico.

Corrections Corporation of America moved 39 Hawai'i inmates May 18 by bus from the Florence Correctional Center to the Torrance County Detention Facility outside Albuquerque, N.M.

Prison officials had some problems on the trip, including a fight between two inmates and a bus breakdown.

Ted Sakai, director of the Hawai'i Department of Public Safety, said at least some of the inmates transferred were part of a prison gang. About 550 Hawai'i inmates are serving sentences at Florence under a contract between the state and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). In all, CCA holds about 1,100 male inmates from Hawai'i at a cost of $16 million to $17 million this year.

Last month the state sent an inspection team to review the operation of Florence, and state officials expressed concerns to CCA about problems there.

Problems at the facility included several inmate beatings, a guard seriously injured in a disturbance at the facility last September, and an inmate who died April 16 from what prison officials suspect was a drug-induced heart attack.

CCA replaced the warden at Florence earlier this month, and asked Hawai'i officials if they could temporarily move about 40 disruptive inmates to a New Mexico prison "to get Florence settled down," Sakai said.

While the inmates were being moved last week, two inmates on the bus got into a fight, and CCA spokesman Steve Owen said staff on the bus used a "chemical irritant" such as Mace to break up the fight.

The gas affected all of the passengers on the bus, so CCA officials took the prisoners to the closest correctional facility, unloaded them, and cleared the chemical out of the bus, Owen said.

Owen said he did not know where the bus stopped or where the inmates were unloaded.

The bus later continued on, but broke down about an hour from Estancia, N.M. and the Torrance County Detention Facility, Sakai said. Another bus was sent from the prison to collect the inmates, he said.

Sakai said the prisoners will remain in Estancia for three to six months, and "once we feel that Florence is operating well, we'll start to phase them back."