Posted on: Tuesday, October 4, 2005
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Potential costs are more than money
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Staff Writer
Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility inmate Saldy Marzan, 38, of Hawai'i, is escorted back to his cell in a disciplinary unit of the Special Housing Incentive Program. Marzan, who is serving a life term for second-degree murder, was convicted of killing his estranged wife.
A decade ago, Hawai'i began exporting inmates to Mainland prisons in what was supposed to be a temporary measure to save money and relieve overcrowding in state prisons. Now, the state doesn't seem to be able to stop.
With little public debate or study, the practice of sending prisoners away has become a predominant feature of Hawai'i's corrections policy, with nearly half of the state's prison population — 1,828 inmates — held in privately operated facilities in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona and Kentucky at a cost of $36 million this year.
Hawai'i already leads all other states in holding the highest percentage of its prison population in out-of-state correctional centers, and if Hawai'i policymakers continue on their present course, by the end of 2006 there likely will be more inmates housed in Mainland prisons than at home. See story.
Sent away | Hawai'i prisoners on the Mainland
