Editorial
Gangs in prisons: 'Nip it in the bud'

Ted Sakai, not the sort of mild-mannered gentleman one would expect to run Hawai'i's prison system, has disputed the thrust of some recent Advertiser reporting on some disquieting claims by and about Island prisoners who are being confined in Mainland facilities.

For instance, inmates and former staff members at an Oklahoma prison where some female prisoners from Hawai'i are housed say illegal drugs are abundant there.

Terming these stories misleading, Sakai said none of the charges has been substantiated.

One report that Sakai supports, however, is the rise of dangerous gangs among Hawai'i prisoners on the Mainland.

For years, reports The Advertiser's Kevin Dayton, Hawai'i's prisons have been free of the violent gangs that plague many Mainland facilities. Now, with clear evidence that Island prisoners there are organizing such a gang, there's justifiable fear that the seeds will quickly be planted in Halawa and other Hawai'i facilities as prisoners are transferred home.

About 1,200 Hawai'i convicts are now held in prisons in Arizona and Oklahoma because there is no room for them here. Indeed, the facilities here remain seriously overcrowded.

Mainland prison officials removed about 40 suspected gang members and shipped them to other facilities.

Hawai'i has had prison gangs before. That experience should dictate decisive reaction.

"It's like a localized cancer," said Terry Pelz, a prison gang specialist who has worked with Hawai'i inmates in Texas. Hawai'i must "nip it in the bud while you can."

Just so.