The effort to overhaul and expand the state prison system may be one of the greatest challenges facing Gov. Linda Lingle.

Lingle said the long-term goal is still to bring home all of the inmates housed on the Mainland. She said those prisoners will have a better shot at rehabilitation if they are closer to their families, friends and support networks in their home communities.

However, bringing them back has become a problem so complex and expensive that it will take at least four to eight more years — maybe longer — to sort out, according to Frank Lopez, acting director of the state Department of Public Safety.

Consultant Carter Goble Associates produced a master plan in 2003 for the future of Hawai'i's corrections system that recommends $1 billion in spending over the next decade to double the capacity of the state's prisons and jails, making enough room to return the Mainland prisoners.

But the state already is lagging far behind the consultant's "implementation schedule."

Carter Goble proposed the state spend $33 million in 2004 and 2005 to plan and design various pieces of the system expansion and lay out $92 million on actual construction this year.

An additional $214 million is proposed for prison construction in 2006, and $600 million more over the following seven years.

But lawmakers didn't provide anything close to the full amounts for 2004 and 2005, and Lopez said he doesn't expect the Legislature to approve enough funding to carry out the rest of the master plan.

Former public safety director Keith Kaneshiro said Hawai'i's 10-year history of housing prison inmates on the Mainland has allowed politicians to take the easy way out.

He said he believes in being tough on criminals and is convinced Hawai'i's increasing incarceration rate over the past decade helped reduce crime. But he also believes Hawai'i convicts belong in Hawai'i.

"They have to build a new prison over here, and I guess it's politicians avoiding the tough questions because it's not a politically popular thing to do," Kaneshiro said.

TREATMENT EMPHASIZED

Lingle, a Republican who took office in December 2002, said her administration is working on a "paradigm shift" in the prison system toward treatment-based corrections with greater emphasis on rehabilitation. The administration has $1 million to spend planning the redesign of the system.

Lingle has proposed two new 500-bed drug-treatment facilities, though the details have yet to be worked out. She said there also will be new emphasis on community-based programs to allow more inmates who are nearing their release dates to live and work in the community rather than sit in cells.

That could reduce the time many inmates are imprisoned by six months, Lingle said, reducing the demand for prison beds.

Lopez said his department wants to build work-release facilities around the state to ease inmates' transition into the community. The plan is to eventually put a work-release facility in each county so that inmates can live near their homes, get jobs, and commute from the facilities to work each day.

But local communities historically have not welcomed prison-related projects. In one ill-fated effort on the Big Island, the state spent more than $2.8 million preparing plans and environmental reports for a proposed 2,300-bed prison at Kulani before abandoning the idea because of public opposition.

Lingle said community resistance is understandable and may present the most difficult hurdle for her plans for a new kind of corrections system.

"People don't want a bunch of criminals located near them and their family," she said. "I can understand that, but it is a responsibility that we have in society to keep these people off of the street and do our best to prepare them to re-enter the community, because they're going to get out," she said.

Another problem is finding the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to pay for new prison, treatment and work-release beds for inmates.

State lawmakers traditionally have been reluctant to spend precious construction dollars on housing criminals when the money could be used for more popular projects, such as schools.

Lingle acknowledged lawmakers would probably rather build anything but a prison, and "I think they're reflecting how their constituents feel."

"I don't think taxpayers like thinking about spending hundreds of millions on facilities and their life doesn't get any better," she said. "So we're going to need to be able to prove that if you allow us to go forward with this concept of treatment, of reintegration into the community, of providing skills for people so when they get out they actually have a chance to make it ... hopefully we'll start to get more support."

JAILS TO BE REPLACED

The prison system already has embarked on a major construction program, but most of the near-term projects aren't meant to bring the Mainland inmates any closer to home. Lopez said the first priority is replacing aging jails on O'ahu, the Big Island, Kaua'i and Maui, and building a new jail in Kona.

The state has set aside about $23 million so far to plan those projects and pay for construction on Maui, and has obtained a federal grant for an additional $13 million for the Maui project.

But that's just a small down payment. A state consultant estimated in 2003 it would cost the state $350 million to complete the five jail projects, meaning together they would be the biggest construction push in the history of the state corrections system. Because the jails have a different function than prisons, the projects will not relieve the severe shortage of prison space that has forced Hawai'i to ship inmates out of state.

Community correctional centers are designed to house prisoners awaiting trial, nearing release, or serving sentences of a year or less. Inmates on the Mainland are convicted felons serving longer sentences.

Lingle's secure treatment facilities would cost still more money, although no one knows exactly what the expense would be.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.