In the interpretation, the attorney general's office said the law is "directory, not mandatory."

Officials made the announcement at a news conference today.

Clayton Frank, interim director of the Department of Public Safety, said today that prison officials have been working on a comprehensive plan to more gradually return inmates to the Islands. But Frank said it could take years — and untold, unbudgeted money — to set up a comprehensive system involving more prison space, halfway houses and other programs to re-introduce inmates into society.

After the passage of Senate Bill 932, which became Act 8, prison officials had publicized a worst-case scenario in which more than 1,100 inmates from Mainland prisons would be returned by the end of 2008 to prepare the convicts for release. They warned Hawai'i's prison system and residential treatment programs can't possibly accommodate that many returning convicts.

But Senate Public Safety Committee Chairman Will Espero had said the new law only requires inmates be returned to Hawai'i if the department has room and treatment programs for them here, which means there is no threat to public safety.

Espero had contended the department ought to be able to make room in Hawai'i for prisoners on the Mainland who are approaching their release dates with a simple swap: The short-timer inmates should come home, and convicts in Hawai'i prisons with more time to serve should be exported to the Mainland to take their place.

The Lingle administration has said for years it wants to expand its re-entry programs for inmates returning from the Mainland, but lawmakers say the administration has done little to make that happen.

Prison officials haven't asked for money to expand transition programs for inmates who are leaving the prison system, and apart from one project on Maui, haven't proposed new sites in Hawai'i where inmates can be housed while they are preparing for release, Espero said.

Frank said today that his department wants to work with legislators and private and nonprofit groups on a program that makes sense.

Hawai'i now holds more than 2,100 convicts in privately run prisons on the Mainland because there is no room for them in Hawai'i facilities. More than half of the state prison population is now housed out of state.