Prison overload may free inmates

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Prison officials said yesterday they are looking at ways to alleviate the overcrowded conditions at the state's facilities and are reviewing inmate requests for possible early release.

As of June 1, there were 3,920 inmates in Hawai'i prisons and jails and another 1,250 in Mainland facilities. In February, the American Civil Liberties Union questioned conditions at the Halawa Correctional Facility and the O'ahu Community Correction Center, where three inmates often are housed in cells made for one.

During the past legislative session, the Department of Public Safety asked for money to house another 250 inmates on the Mainland, but received enough for just 150, said public safety director Ted Sakai. Coupled with an ever-increasing inmate population, officials had to reduce the overcrowding or face legal action, Sakai said.

He said inmates being reviewed include those who are reaching the end of their sentences, inmates who can be turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation, those who are in poor health, and drug offenders who may be better off in a treatment program.

Sakai said his department has not set a quota on how many inmates will be released.

"It's not something we take lightly. We're going to do it carefully," he said. "We want to make sure that we're not going to be putting dangerous people on the street."

In 1984, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state saying that conditions were so poor they amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment." The lawsuit was settled when the state and ACLU agreed to a consent decree that required the state to renovate buildings or build new ones, improve medical care and reduce the inmate population. The decree was lifted in 1999.