As attorney general Mark Bennett's top deputy, Bissen has led the administration's efforts to improve conditions at the state's troubled Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility. Prior to working for the state, Bissen was the prosecuting attorney for Maui County from 1995 to 2003.

Gov. Linda Lingle said Bissen is "well respected in the legal and law enforcement communities, he is a skilled manager, and has a proven record of working collaboratively with state, local and federal organizations."

Bissen said yesterday that his first priority will be to meet with the department's three deputy directors and Peyton. "I'm sure they've got some great programs that they initiated," he said. "The ones that are effective I'd like to keep at."

Peyton, 60, is resigning to become head of the Rule of Law Department at the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, making him responsible for implementing the international community's rule of law programs in the country.

Before his appointment by Lingle, Peyton was vice president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Lingle praised Peyton for his leadership in the department's development of a 10-year plan to improve the state's outdated corrections system. Peyton yesterday also touched on the same subject.

"We got the Maui (corrections facility) project under way; we have secured from the Legislature money to plan the replacement of the Kaua'i and O'ahu Community Correctional Center facilities and to build a new secure treatment facility," Peyton said. "These are all long-term projects that are going to take several years in terms of them actually opening but we had to start and we've made a good start."

Kat Brady, coordinator for the prisons watchdog group known as the Community Alliance on Prisons, said that while Peyton had a sharp learning curve because he had no background in the corrections field, he learned quickly. She praised him for leading the effort to update the 10-year strategic plan during his 15 months in office, even if her group does not agree with all of its proposals. "That was a bear and he did it," she said.

As for Bissen, Brady noted that he focused on community programs and diversion programs for non-violent offenders in his work with the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility. "I hope that he carries over that philosophy into the adult prison system and that he really looks at rehabilitation."