Posted on: Friday, January 18, 2002

High-rise proposed for jail in Halawa

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

Prison officials are considering replacing the O'ahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi with a new high-rise jail that would be built in Halawa Valley, state Public Safety Director Ted Sakai said yesterday.

House Public Safety Chairman Nestor Garcia said the state is considering a proposal for a 100-foot-tall structure that would be built next to the state's largest prison, the Halawa Correctional Facility.

The Halawa prison is on a 35-acre site mauka of the Halawa Industrial Park.

"The benefit of Halawa is it's right at the end of the valley, and nobody lives there. There are some businesses, but we were there first," Sakai said.

OCCC houses more than 1,100 inmates, and Sakai said the new lockup would need to be larger than the existing jail. He said the state is considering "a number of options," but that no final decision has been made on where to put the new jail.

A jail, such as OCCC, houses people awaiting trial and those serving sentences of less than one year; prisons hold sentenced felons.

The state already has placed more than 1,200 Hawai'i convicts in privately operated prisons on the Mainland, and Sakai said the in-state prison and jail populations grew by almost 7 percent last year.

Officials are asking for money to begin planning to replace OCCC, which was built in the early 1980s. Sakai said it was poorly designed, is now overcrowded and sits on a 16-acre Kalihi site that doesn't offer enough room for expansion.

'Aiea and Halawa residents contacted yesterday said they had not heard about the proposal, but said the existing prison has caused relatively few problems.

"The security must have been very good," said 'Aiea resident Alice Takehara, who said she was strongly opposed to the original plans to put a prison in Halawa. "If the state really needs that space down in Kalihi, maybe it might be wise to consider Halawa Valley."

Gov. Ben Cayetano said the state is talking to two private companies that are interested in financing and building the new jail and a new 1,000-bed treatment facility on the Big Island, and leasing space back to the state.

The Big Island treatment facility would be a medium- or minimum-security correctional facility that emphasizes drug treatment.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.