Forces strong against new correctional facility

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

Politics, little money and a "not in my back yard" attitude stopped efforts to build a new correctional facility in Hawai'i despite years of debate and an inmate population that nearly doubled in the past eight years.

Gov. Ben Cayetano said arguments over cost, location and type of facility have managed to kill proposals during his tenure. "Nobody wanted it in their back yard. And we had a tough time with the unions because they oppose privatization."

With his term coming to an end in a week, the governor continues to try to reach a deal with a private developer to build next to the Halawa Correctional Facility.

Gov.-elect Linda Lingle has asked Cayetano to drop the negotiations and wants to explore options, including a correctional facility/drug treatment center on the Big Island or Moloka'i. Cayetano said he remains committed to reaching a deal this week, "but if we're not able to do it, I want Linda Lingle's administration to at least look at (the idea), and not take the attitude that she doesn't like it because it was Cayetano's idea."

Until a new facility is built, Cayetano said he believes the only solution is to continue shipping inmates to Mainland prisons, a situation which Lingle said she is opposed to.

"For now, the ones already up there may have to stay there for the time being until we build a new facility," Lingle said. "But I'm against sending any more inmates to the Mainland. It's tough to successfully go through rehabilitation when you don't have the family support nearby."

Cayetano said he decided to go into private negotiations earlier this year after admitting the chances of getting money through the Legislature was unlikely, with lawmakers lobbying for limited money for community, schools and other projects during an election year.

"To build a prison would cost between $100 million and $125 million," Cayetano said last week. "And for the guys downstairs (state legislators), that's a really big chunk to spend because you could build the UH-West O'ahu campus with that money."

Inmate population doubles

Should Cayetano strike a deal, the new Halawa facility would replace the crowded and antiquated O'ahu Community Correctional Center, which houses felons awaiting trial or sentencing, those convicted of misdemeanors serving short sentences, and parole violators headed back to prison.

The state's inmate population has nearly doubled under Cayetano's administration, from 2,893 inmates in December 1994 to 5,072 as of last week, and the increase can't be attributed to a surge in crime. Although Hawai'i ranks high nationally in property crime, the overall crime rate dropped 25.6 percent from 1995 to 2001.

The explosion of crystal methamphetamine, or "ice," use is partly to blame, said Ted Sakai, state public safety director.

"Ice is a major contributor to the crime problem and probably the most addictive of all the drugs," Sakai said. "About 85 to 90 percent of our inmates are drug users, and these users are contributing to our high property crime rate.

"We're still overcrowded, and a large part of the problem is a large proportion of suitable beds is for minimum-security inmates, when we need beds for more serious offenders."

The state began dealing with prison crowding in 1995 by paying to board inmates in Mainland prisons. There are 1,294 Hawai'i inmates in three correctional facilities in Oklahoma and Arizona.

Keith Kaneshiro, state public safety director from 1996 to 1998, said housing inmates in Mainland prisons was supposed to be an interim move, allowing the state time to build a new prison within three years. It was also cheaper, only $55 a day to house a prisoner on the Mainland compared with $88 in Hawai'i.

"When I left the job in 1998, the Legislature had approved a new prison on the Big Island; I thought everything was in place," Kaneshiro said. "Two years later, the governor scraps the plan."

Kaneshiro said he believes state lawmakers' have "no will" to build a new prison or jail.

"It's not high on their priority list," he said. "Transferring the inmates to the Mainland did relieve the overcrowding for a time, but nothing got built and now the inmates are stuck up there."

City Councilman Nestor Garcia, former chairman of the House Public Safety and Military Affairs Committee, said in 2000 he pushed for a privatized, minimum-security treatment and rehabilitation center on the Big Island. But the United Public Workers Union came out strongly against the private prison idea. A compromise bill that would have required public employee unions to compete with private companies for the right to operate a new Hawai'i prison was vetoed by Cayetano, dooming the project.

As for other prison proposals, Garcia said, "it was hard to get some of my legislative peers to support a prison when school facilities are in disrepair ... we have to solve this overcrowding problem in our back yard, but nobody wants it in their back yard."

Cayetano has proposed or looked at prison sites on the Big Island at Ka'u, Kulani, and near the Hilo Airport; on Kaua'i; and even in Arizona and New Mexico. Nearly all the Hawai'i-based projects have faced community opposition based on location.

The Legislature four years ago authorized Cayetano to negotiate directly with developers, but the administration first had the Department of Accounting and General Services seek bids for the project. A single bid received by the state in August came in much higher than the state's $130 million estimate, and Cayetano hopes a second bid will come in lower before he leaves office.

Officials won't say whether an agreement would require a private company rather than state employees to operate the facility, but Cayetano has said he is open to such an arrangement if it would save taxpayers money.

The state's original plan was to raise money for the project by issuing debt instruments called certificates of participation, then buy the facility through lease payments over 30 years.

But Lingle wants Cayetano to stop negotiations.

One idea she wants to study is an "alternative" prison privately operated with guidance from Dr. Terry Shintani, president of the Hawai'i Health Foundation and director of preventive and integrative medicine at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center.

Proposals floated

Under the proposal, the alternative facility would be built on land controlled by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands and would take a holistic approach to rehabilitation that includes the low-fat vegetarian "Hawai'i Diet" Shintani is known for promoting.

But Lingle made clear last week that Shintani's proposal came to her "in a one and a half-page fax, and I have yet to sit down with him. It's still too early in the game and we have to assess each proposal." Cost and size of a new state facility has yet to be worked out by her team.

Other ideas being thrown around is a prison and/or drug rehabilitation center on Moloka'i.

"There are very serious problems on Moloka'i with drugs, unemployment," Lingle said. "A facility with drug rehabilitation programs could help. And it would create jobs there."

Lingle acknowledges that a portion of the Moloka'i population criticized a previous proposal to build a similar facility there. And that a new local prison anywhere will probably face some community opposition.

"And that's the dilemma with noxious public facilities like prisons, landfills and even power plants," she said. "We support the need for these facilities, but when a location is decided, it becomes an emotional, 'not in my back yard' issue."

A road that the state has been down before.

Reach Scott Ishikawa at sishikawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 535-8110.