Hawai'i Prisoners Finish Their Sentences... And Stay in Prison

by Matt Kelley · 2011-01-26 07:30:00 UTC
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A report from Hawai'i's state auditor recently turned up some disturbing news: prisoners in the state are regularly held past the end of their sentences.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new in Hawai'i; the state paid more than half a million dollars in 2002 to 180 prisoners who had been held too long. But it's disappointing to see the practice continuing. A new lawsuit alleges that nine more prisoners were held past their sentence completions and -- even more troubling -- the state auditor's report examined 985 prisoner records at Hawai'i's Halawa prison and found 280 prisoners whose release date had passed. Even one day over a sentence is too long.

Hawai'i has had a prison overcrowding problem for years, perhaps in part because the state's facilities are full of non-violent offenders who shouldn't be there. Because the state doesn't have enough cells to house all of its prisoners, it has been sending thousands of them to private facilities on the mainland. About 35 percent of the state's prisoners are housed on the mainland -- most at an Arizona facility run by our old friend, the Corrections Corporation of America.

But there's hope on the horizon for this Pacific paradise. New Gov. Neil Abercrombie took office in December and quickly vowed to bring all Hawai'i prisoners back to the islands. "It is dysfunctional to send people out of the state. It costs money, it costs lives, it costs communities. It destroys families," Abercrombie said. "It is dysfunctional all the way around, socially, economically, politically and morally." Amen.

An op-ed from University of Hawai'i Prof. Marilyn Brown in today's Honolulu Star-Advertiser praises Abercrombie's goal of bringing prisoners home to Hawai'i and urges the state to build on this momentum by investing in community corrections and treatment rather than cells and long sentences. Abercrombie should also direct the state's Department of Public Safety to invest in record-keeping improvements to ensure that no prisoner ever overstays his sentences in the state again.

Please join me in thanking Abercrombie for taking a step in the right direction and urging him to build on this progress. Sign the petition here.

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Photo Credit: Hawai'i Dept. of Public Safety

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.

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