Posted on: Tuesday, September 30, 2003
EDITORIAL
Don't sacrifice jails to partisan squabbles
If the quality of public schools and jails tells you how functional a state is, then Hawai'i is in trouble. Our institutions of learning and incarceration have fallen woefully into disrepair.
Hawai'i has more than 5,000 inmates, including about 1,350 in private Mainland prisons contracted by the state.
Gov. Linda Lingle says the state's four jails — which are mainly used to confine people serving misdemeanor sentences, or those awaiting trial or sentencing — have deteriorated to the point that they need to be replaced.
The previous administration of Gov. Ben Cayetano struggled with that same problem, and was poised to build a new jail at Halawa to replace the outdated and crowded O'ahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi.
When Lingle entered office with a new philosophy about incarceration, she shelved those plans. She had her sights set on an alternative prison that focused on drug treatment. Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona was looking into having such a facility run by Maranatha Corrections, a faith-based company that operates a facility in California that serves about 500 inmates.
We're not sure exactly how those plans are evolving, but last week, Lingle said that the jails would need to be replaced because "they're just not functional," adding she would ask the Legislature next session to take the first steps in that direction. She also said her administration will seek to build at least one private 500-bed prison that emphasizes drug- abuse treatment.
Such a prison would work better on O'ahu than the Big Island because most Hawai'i inmates are from Honolulu, she said.
House Speaker Calvin Say wishes Lingle hadn't taken the state back to Square One by halting plans for the new O'ahu jail. But he and other lawmakers must nonetheless listen to Lingle's proposals and weigh them. Crowded and dilapidated jails and prisons are a problem for everyone, regardless of which administration is running the show.
That said, let's not forget about the importance of upgrading our public schools, because, in the long run, better schools add up to fewer inmates.
