Nearly 1,900 Hawai'i inmates housed in privately run prisons around the Mainland would all be moved to southern Arizona under a plan to consolidate the convicts in three Arizona facilities run by the Corrections Corp. of America.

The arrangements have not been finalized, but state prisons spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy confirmed ongoing discussions with CCA about moving male and female inmates now being held in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

The inmates would go to the Florence Correctional Facility in Florence, Ariz., and two new prisons in Eloy, halfway between Tucson and Phoenix. The Florence facility already holds about 60 Hawai'i men.

CCA's $82.5 million, 1,596-bed Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy was dedicated yesterday, and construction of the company's 1,896-bed Saguaro Correctional Center began in May, with the prison scheduled to open next year.

Hawai'i pays about $40 million a year to CCA to house its prisoners, and state lawmakers this year set aside an additional $12 million to transfer 676 more inmates to the Mainland. When those transfers are complete, the state will have more inmates serving their sentences on the Mainland than in Hawai'i prisons.

Hawai'i Public Safety Deputy Director Frank Lopez and other prison officials were in Eloy yesterday for the dedication of the new Red Rock prison. Corrections Corp. of America officials have said Red Rock will house prisoners from Alaska and Hawai'i, but Hawai'i officials said the state has not yet finalized a deal to hold inmates there.

Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons, said the consolidation suggests Hawai'i is locked into a policy of exporting its inmates for years to come.

"There is no exit strategy," Brady said of the Mainland prisoner placements. "Again, this shows the Department of Public Safety has no interest in keeping families connected because they provided no exit strategy."

Brady said shipping inmates to the Mainland was never meant to be a permanent solution to prison overcrowding, but that mandatory minimum sentencing caused the prison population to grow out of control.

"They continue to pass these punitive laws that do nothing to rehabilitate anybody, but do everything to create a permanent criminal underclass," she said.

Brady said she is particularly disappointed state prison officials are not bringing home about 150 female inmates now housed in the Otter Creek Correctional Center in Kentucky. She said there has been a stream of complaints about allegedly "abysmal" medical care and unfair treatment at the prison.

State prison officials say there simply is no room for Hawai'i inmates in local prisons, and that it's far cheaper to hold them on the Mainland — $58 per inmate per day vs. $105 per inmate per day in Hawai'i.

Some of the Mainland inmates from Hawai'i complain they are separated from their families, but others prefer to do their time out-of-state because they say they have better access to educational and treatment programs.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.