State's emphasis on parole, not prison

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i is not a lock-'em-up state. Not yet.

Senior probation officer Vincent Borja talks with a client. The state's probation officers are focusing on "motivational interviewing." Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"We don't have hanging judges in Hawai'i who lock up pretty much everybody who comes into their courtroom," said John Peyton, director of the Department of Public Safety.

With jails and prisons packed to the bursting point, there's nowhere left in the state to lock up more people anyway. It's much cheaper to supervise offenders out of custody, and it gives them a chance to work and pay taxes instead of draining public resources while sitting in prison.

But many prisoners simply must be locked up because they're dangerous. And sentencing laws require the incarceration of others.

"We have already wrung out of the system almost everybody you can wring out," Peyton said.

Probation and parole also give criminals the chance to commit new crimes and tax the system if they remain unemployed.

And Hawai'i does not have the proper tools in place to minimize such threats or provide the treatment necessary to break addictions to crystal methamphetamine and other drugs.

Caseloads for probation and parole officers have steadily increased, leaving them swamped with offenders to supervise and with less time for the field work required to keep a close watch.

"Right now, it's really hard to provide adequate parole supervision and guarantee public safety with the amount of officers we have versus our caseload," said Hawaii Paroling Authority administrator Tommy Johnson.

Most parole and probation officers supervise twice as many offenders as their counterparts did in years past. Some carry caseloads of up to 175 offenders each.

Offenders deemed low-risk receive virtually no probation supervision, and check in with officers once or twice a year unless they commit a new crime or trigger community complaints.

But those addicted to drugs often require much more attention.

"You're not only dealing with someone who has committed an offense," said Joan Sakaba, state probation program specialist. "You're dealing with a person who has multiple issues. If you don't deal with those issues, the person will continue to spiral down."

One way the state is stretching its resources is to have a variety of its agencies work together to standardize the way offenders are assessed, so that treatment programs are used effectively and services aren't duplicated. And probation officers are being trained in new interviewing techniques designed to convince offenders that although officers have the power to seek incarceration, they also are there to help.

"What the motivational interviewing is doing is helping them to begin to look at why they need to change, helping get them to the point where they want to change," Sakaba said. "It's engagement, but it's also setting boundaries. Because with this population, they also need to know that they're making choices, and some of those choices are going to be choices that are going to put them back into prison."

The goal is cognitive restructuring — changing the way someone thinks. But help is not always available to make a change happen. Even when required by the courts to complete a drug-treatment program, offenders can't always get in.

The number of state-financed treatment slots are limited, and insurance doesn't always cover what's necessary. The state's own healthcare program for low-income people denies coverage if a person hasn't used drugs in 30 days — even if they've been in jail for months and didn't use drugs simply because they were not available.

"Because we can't get them in right away, some of them start using, and we lose them," Sakaba said.

And the change in focus hasn't been easy on probation officers either, because the timing has been dictated largely by the availability of federal grants that must be used or lost, state Judiciary Adult Services administrator Ron Hajime said.

"It hasn't been at a pace where we can manage everything that's coming at us, so I've lost some staff because of that," he said. "Either they've been disappointed, or they've been burdened by this immense change that's occurring on top of their current work load. It's been hard."

More treatment has been made available to parolees, but it's also very limited, Johnson said.

"The number of parole violators we're returning to prison for substance abuse is going down a little bit only because now we have money to refer them to programs that we didn't have before, and we couldn't let them continue their behavior on the outside and break into my house or yours at 2 o'clock in the morning to get money for drugs," he said.

The Paroling Authority is asking lawmakers for $353,000 to expand treatment programs next year. Johnson said much more is needed, but he recognizes state resources are limited.

"We need millions for substance-abuse treatment, to be honest with you," he said.

Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.

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