House Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning. Convening our public safety hearing on Wednesday, February 5th, 8:30am in conference room 411. Good morning, members. And good morning to the public. Members, we have an agenda with four bills for hearing and then one for decision making.

I anticipated more testimony, but it does not appear that we have such an overwhelming amount of testimony that we're going to have to impose time limits. However, because morning hearings must adjourn prior to floor session if we have to, I will impose time limits and accordingly. Let's see. And I just lost my information.

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On that note, we will start with House Bill 433 relating to public safety, which appropriates funds to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for reentry services to connect offenders with community based services Members. First up, we have the Director of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Mr. Johnson.

Good morning. Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto and Members of the Committee. I'm Tommy Johnson, the Director of the Department of Correction Rehabilitation. I'll just summarize our short testimony. We support the intent of this measure and sincerely appreciate the Legislature's interest and in particular the chair. But we do have $4 million in the governor's Executive budget.

So if this measure does move forward, we'd ask the Legislature to defer to the Governor's Budget and Committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Director. Testimony and support from the Hawaii Correctional system oversight commission, Ms. Johnson. And Commissioner Torney is here on her behalf. Wonderful.

Hi, my name is Martha Torney. I'm one of the commissioners with the Commission. As you know, the transition of offenders back into the community is a very difficult time and a very important time to make sure they are successful.

And as the Department is transitioning to a rehabilitation Department, we think this type of paradigm shift requires significant funding. And evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that well funded reentry programs significantly reduce recidivism and provide public safety. So thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you, Commissioner. We have in support Office of the Public Defender. We have in support Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, Ms. Manor in support Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition. Alan Johnson, come on up please. And please identify yourself.

Chair. Vice Chair. Good morning distinguished Members. Alan Johnson with the White Substance Abuse Coalition. It seems like there's a lot of Johnson's here. We represent, the coalition represents, you know, the treatment. We outpatient, we represent harm reduction, we represent co occurring disorders, we represent complex patients, we represent harm reduction. Now we're trying to move into housing.

We're looking for this opportunity and I want to apologize because we didn't really see this Bill until a couple days ago getting up to all the agencies or we'd fill up the room.

So I would say that we would see that there is work to be done and more money needed because we really need to integrate those services more. We're seeing well on the mainland that harm reduction is reaching people where they're at and helping them.

We're also now seeing for those more advanced than us, 50 to 70% of them want treatment after they've been stabilizing, going not everyone, but much more. So we got to do some more linkages there to how do we work with that. As you may know, the treatment money was reduced to pay for the harm reductions.

So we have empty beds with no funding and some of us run out of money before the end of the year in the residential area. So we see there's an influx of money.

We need more money in the harm reduction, we need more money in the crisis center and we need more money to restore treatment where it was at. Because this solution is really has tremendous, it's already working and it can have tremendous capability of changing our system here.

And I think finally science is catching up enough to integrate us all that we could really make a huge difference here for the homeless and for those struggling with mental health and substance abuse. And I want to remind you too that most treatment now is moved into mental health as well as substance abuse.

So you know, we're coming together now. These are great things happening. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr. Johnson. We will be asking questions so Please, if all the tested virus could remain, if you can. We have testimony in support from the Community alliance on prisons, Ms. Kat Brady.

Good morning. Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto and Members of the Committee. Kat Brady testifying on behalf of Community Alliance and Prisons. We support this measure and we have a suggestion actually $4 million for two cycles. That's a good start. But we believe before any funding is released, DCR shall submit a reentry plan.

So that they actually have a plan. We don't have currently a reentry system. We. We have several different places where people can go, but we don't have a system. And what we need is a system.

So before any funding is released, DCR shall submit a reentry plan that includes the names and descriptions of community based services to which individuals would be connected, the number of individuals anticipated in each cohort, a timeline for expending the funds and and an evaluation after each two year cycle so the Legislature can assess the efficacy of the newly created reentry system.

That's shared with the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission and posted on both APESOCS and legislative website. Thank you so much.

Okay, we have testimony from Ms. Carolyn Eaton and you're welcome to just stand on your testimony. Thank you. Testimony and support from individual Jennifer Chiwa. Okay, any other testifiers in the room?

Aloha Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Uboto Committee Members. Carrie Anchor on behalf of ASEL. Yes. Our position, I'm sorry, I have not submit written comments. It's been a busy week. But our position is we're going to comment. We support the intent. We support having sufficient funding for reintegration services.

However, we want that funding to be conditioned upon a number of factors. One is that there is strategic planning. The reentry Bill that is codified in law that Cat Brady helped to write years ago was modeled after Meo's best reintegration program looking at comprehensive needs of individuals who are exiting our jails and prisons.

And part of that planning is this philosophy that reentry starts on day one. So if you're just dishing out money, there's no strategy, there are no benchmarks for performance measures and for legislators to see whether that money is being used towards programs and infrastructure that's effective to help people to enhance their opportunities for success.

We might be just throwing money and making the problem worse. So I would humbly suggest, as Katz noted, that you have performance measure benchmarks. There's first a strategic plan, performance measure benchmarks, whether it's going to be Quarterly, I would suggest, and then annually submitting a report to lawmakers.

And to the extent that you're able to, looking at the types of contracts, I strongly recommend that we not just rely upon the Department. The Department is one stakeholder. In order for reentry to be successful, there needs to be tremendous community partnerships. And MEO was based upon having case managers from our program reach into the jail.

And we would run classes and help people transition so we knew when they would be released. All the services, helping with housing, jobs, whether needed tools for a job, reconnecting with their family. And so we need to look at this, at the big picture.

So yes, we support the intent, but that we condition the funding and that there be transparency in the type of contracts. We have more organizations like ywca, Going Home, Men of Pa'a first lap that we contract with those programs that will reach in so that there's a seamless transition from inside back into the community. Mahalo.

Thank you, Ms. Shirota. And Ms. Shirota is with the ACLU Hawaii. If you would like to you can prepare, provide our staff with written testimony. Okay. Any other testifiers in the room? Any testifiers via Zoom seeing None. Members, questions? Go ahead. Representative, you.

Thank you. Chair for Director Johnson. Thank you. So you mentioned about the budget and you deferred to the Governor's Budget, but this would be a supplemental budget, I believe. No, no. Okay. It's just earmarking $4 million of the Governor's Budget for reintegration specifically. Sorry about that. Thank you.

And then so currently, so it's my understanding that it's like 30 to 40% of people in our jails currently have, are having. Are houseless before they even get incarcerated. What kind of, and this is referring to pretrial individuals.

What kind of services are they getting pre trial to knowing that such a huge portion of the population is, you know, were homeless or unsheltered, what kind of services are we currently giving them?

For pretrial detainees? We don't have jurisdiction in those cases. So we provide basic medical care for them, provide food for them, and that's basically it. And we do provide abbreviated COG cognitive programs and substance abuse treatment if they wish to participate in that treatment.

But for pre trial, they may be with us for four days or two weeks. We just don't know. For the jail population, the population that's with us the longest is the sentence misdemeanors, and they're with us for up to a year. So we try to concentrate our efforts on them. Because they're there long enough to get.

Some type of programming and they are getting help specifically around when they exit that they'll have housing or some kind of plan or strategy to ensure that they have the income, ability to have income or an address for a shelter. You said you.

Well, we provide for the, for the pre trial population and the sentence misdemeaning population. We provide referral services for them to some of our community partners. We do have a reentry process. The $4 million would help us strengthen that process. And I do agree that we should be accountable for the funding for that.

I know you didn't ask the question, but I do think we should be able to provide some type of benchmarks. We do have a system in place for recidivism. The Department of the. Excuse me, the Interagency Council Immediate Sanctions is responsible for preparing the recidivism report.

The recidivism report is published every three years based on the cohort and the latest report, I think was done in 2019. They're working on the next iteration of the report. Thank you. You're welcome.

Go ahead. Representative Shimizu.

Director Johnson, I was wondering if you could comment on the testimony that was provided by Ms. Brady and ACLU as far as their suggestion of. A reentry.

Plan and performance metrics. Well, the performance matrix we already have in our annual report, which is posted on our website. And so we do have for each program within the Department of Public Safety, we have performance matrices and performance outcomes. All of those are posted in our annual report.

And we do provide the Legislature with reports on specific acts that were passed over the years.

Any other questions?

Yes, sorry. Thank you. Could you imagine with this $4 million that you have a real, more real time tally of how many people are receiving, who are getting, who've been diverted by post booking diversion programs and you know, who are receiving treatment? Like you mentioned the benchmarks.

If there's more real time, like how many numbers of people have been, you know, assisted who are exiting, you know.

Like we can provide that for this particular, for this pot of money. If we are, if we do receive it, we can provide that. How many people are serviced by this, by this $4 million? But I want to be clear, we're breaking down the $4 million. It's not just reentry services.

$500,000 of that is for us to partner with a union to provide the initial equipment. The inmates need the initial safety equipment. They need to be part of an apprenticeship program so that they can earn a living wage with the understanding that the union would include them in their membership once they're done.

And we would pay those offenders a living wage while they're participating in the program. We originally asked for $1.92 million for that. We didn't get it. So I'm using 5500,000 to do a pilot program so that we can show proof of concept. Another portion of the money would be used for substance abuse treatment.

Another portion would be used for navigator services with a vendor out there that do that warm handoff from the case managers in the facility to the case managers out in the community.

And we're trying to partner with organizations who do the reach in and they still provide those services as they come out so that we, not we don't have an interruption in services and they're working with the same people. Another smaller portion of that money. We're looking at providing some type of temporary housing for 90 to 60 days.

Right now I think a bed space or a bedroom in a clean and sober house is probably somewhere between 350 and $500 a month.

So we believe that the people who are exiting because they may not have enough money saved up, they need that as a stabilization housing, a bridge until they can have enough money saved up so they can be more self sufficient.

I just want to share with you. I think it's much more than that.

As far as the 350 to 500.

Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm surprised too, but yeah.

Can you restate that again? What is the amount?

I thought it was 350 to 500 per bed in a clean and sober house. And if I'm not mistaken. They normally put two to four people in the bedroom, in the bunk beds, or if it's a larger, smaller room, two beds.

And then you're saying it's more expensive.

I'm actually. I actually think it's closer to $800. Wow. Yeah. Only speaking to people who've heard that.

Okay, next follow up question.

Director Johnson, kind of going back to my original question, what I heard from you, as far as your response was basically you're already doing what they said to some degree.

I think that the Department should be held accountable for this pot of money, if we get it. And we should provide reports to the Legislature. I don't think quarterly reports. That would be a lot of manpower.

I think we should provide reports annually regarding the expenditure of the funds, how many people were serviced, and of those people serviced, how many people recidivated. I think that's what they're getting at, unless I'm wrong. Right, right.

Yeah.

I can agree that the regularity of it is consuming as far as labor, but, you know, for myself, could we get like a written that document of what this reentry plan that you provide and have one from Cat Brady and one from ACLU so that we can kind of see what we're looking at, I mean, for me personally, and see where we can integrate it or maybe make some improvements and for myself, be more educated on what is actually happening and how is the.

These fundings being used and, you know, empowering people.

No, we can do that. We can provide a matrix, if you will, explaining from the date a person comes in, the assessment process, the sequential phasing process, how the programs are identified, how we determine risk and needs based on the LCR and the ASIS and other trailer instruments.

And then we come up with an individual program plan, and then we try to get that person through those. Through those programs prior to the tentative parole date. I think that's what you're asking for.

And we can provide a list of all the program, of the contracts we currently have, and also copies of all our volunteer organizations we work with already who come into the facility. So we're working on that list already.

Okay, that'd be great. You know, I don't want to give you a doctorate to write up, but that would be helpful. Yeah. And if you both don't mind providing that, I would appreciate that. And offline, ACLU, can you provide the names of the organizations that you rattled off? Thank you.

Chair, let me ask a few questions and that might help move this along. Director, just Want to hone in on a couple of things on the budget just so that we understand. So the Bill is drafted basically mirroring what is in the Governor's Budget.

And I understand that you'd rather it just be in the budget, but just we want to. We are also moving this Bill as part of the majority package to really highlight the importance that we also agree and concur. The $4 million is in addition to what you already spend currently in your budget for reentry services.

Is that correct?

And what is that base amount that you, if you can give me a roundish finger of what what is that you spend?

Correct.

I think it's about 1.5 to 1.7 million, but I can get the exact amount.

And that's statewide.

That's statewide.

That is actually quite shocking how Low that is.

Well, it's Low because I want to explain that the reentry office is a separate office. So this would be for reentry services. We have a separate division that's correction program services division that provides the in facility programs and treatment. Their budget is much, much larger.

Okay, what is the in facility budget budget?

I didn't bring that with me either. I'll get that for you.

We could follow up with that later. And that's what division within the Department?

That's within the Corrections. Corrections services division, Corrections program services division. So in that division there's five major Healthcare, food service, sex offender treatment, educational services and substance abuse treatment services.

Within that section of your Department, are there community based providing services for that or is that all internal to DCR staff?

It's both. It's our DCR staff who are trained to provide education and substance abuse treatment. But there's also contracts for vendors to come into the facilities and provide services.

So what I think moving forward to supplement Representative Shimmy's request, I'd like to see a list of who those contracted vendors are, the partnerships that you have there.

I also want to note Members, in the informational briefing we had on Monday, seems so long ago, you were given packets that included the presentations but also there were additional information and I provided the packets to all Members on the Committee in that there was paperwork that has education and treatment programs, description of reentry programs and services, intake, jail and prison intake, assessment process.

So there's a number of of documents in here that are responsive to some of the questions. But I think you know, still having a more one list in one place would be also helpful and we will be working with the Department on that. So going back to the question about the $4 million. Right.

So that is going to be supplementing the 1.5 to 1.7 million, and then that will allow you to do all of those things that you. You discussed, which included temporary housing for 90 to 60 days or 60 to 90 days. Right. Okay.

So having a more detailed plan of that as we move forward through this legislative session, that would be helpful to know. And I know that it's in some of your budget materials, so we could also go back on that.

I want to go to a comment that you made in response to Representative Iwamoto's question about what services are pretrial detainees getting? And you responded by saying that you do not have jurisdiction over them. So really, you're not the Department that is responsible for those services that they.

No, no. But what we do do is we work with the courts and we try to ask the courts to put them on supervised release, providing the courts agree, and then we then can provide services to them in the community, because then they are. They are effectively under our supervision at that point.

Unfortunately, the judiciary as a whole denies 7 out of 10 requests for release. That's getting a little bit better because we've increased our electronic monitoring. So that gives the court a better feeling that we can monitor the person better.

So we saw an increase in the Big island so far with respect to the number of people on electronic monitoring. I mean, it's a small number. We went from like 7 to 17, but. But every bed space we clear out of facilities help the severely overcrowded jails.

Okay, when you say that you now have jurisdiction to provide services through them on supervised release.

Right.

Where is that? I want to follow the patient or follow the patient and follow the money.

We have contracts in the community that we refer them to the contracts in the community that would be part of the terms and conditions of their supervised release that they have to do X, Y and z.

Okay. And then the budget item for that, those contracts is that outside of the 1.51.7 million, that's part of the.

Corrections Program Services Division's budget. So I will provide you with the RCO budget and the Corrections Program Services Division budget.

Okay. Is it also correct to say that if you have pretrial detainees who are part of, I believe, Act 26, you're also going to see a number of your persons moving into AMHD or Department of Health jurisdiction, potentially state hospital, and then released back to the public?

Is that a correct representation of what might happen to some of the people.

To some of Them.

Okay, can you explain to the Committee what that looks like?

Well, if you're talking about the 704 process, so what happens is the courts will schedule a 704 evaluation. We'll transport the person to the 704 evaluation based on results of the 704 evaluation. If the person is fit to proceed, they'll come back to us and they'll stay with us.

If they're not, then we arrange for the transfer to the state hospital. However, I want to make it clear, some of the orders we get do not say transfer immediately. They say transfer upon request of the administrator for the state hospital.

So what that tells us is they don't have bed space for the person and so they remain in our jurisdiction until then. Other orders order us that when that line is, that sentence is not there. We have 72 hours from the date of the order to get the person to the state hospital.

We get them to the state hospital normally within 24 hours.

Okay. In that situation where you are not given the language that allows the transport and then you hold them because you can't, because there might be issues with the state hospital at that point, is there any mechanism for you to begin to start providing services for them?

Or is there a need for a memorandum of agreement or some kind of understanding to allow AMHD to come in and then maybe perhaps provide services?

So we provide the services they need. It's just the problem is if they're found unfit to proceed, we may not have the level of services they need in a jail setting.

And the jail setting, I want to make it clear, is probably the least effective, most costly option for someone with mental health issues because it is not a therapeutic environment. We worry about them getting preyed upon by the other offenders in the facility.

And so ideally there should be some type of, for lack of a better term, step down facility run by the Department of Health where these folks who don't require forensic level care, but require a level of care that's above what we can provide should be.

And I think that's a good majority of our jail population with seriously persistent mental health issues.

Okay, so the need for a step down facility, is there any. Does that step down facility need to be on jail property or can it be outside in the community?

My recommendation, it should be in the community because these are not. These are folks who need treatment, not incarceration, but it should be a secure treatment facility.

And then part of the mechanisms that we have worked on for the pre trial population has been around what's called the assisted community treatment orders. Is there any ways in which in your facility those kind of ACT orders could be facilitated?

If we had an order to treat from the court, we could provide that treatment. The problem we have is we don't necessarily have the appropriate number of professionals at that level to provide that treatment.

So their memorandum of agreement or understanding could be worked out with DoH, where their providers come in and provide those particular folks with the treatment they need and we provide the monitoring and report back to the Department of Health about how the treatment regimen is going, how is the person's behavior and action.

Okay, I want to focus in on that. So you could have a mechanism where DoH could. You could have the persons still in the jail. It's not ideal, but still there. You guys provide the monitoring. But DoH has providers to come in to provide treatment.

Right. But I want to make it clear this is not for that forensic level of care. This is for that interim step to provide the services they need. Or while the DoH figures out what to do with the case, it should not be long term.

We should not be keeping them for a year or two in custody providing treatment. And that's my concern that once we have an agreement in place, then there's no incentive to move the person to where they should be.

Okay, okay, thank you for those explanations. And this is an area we'll continue to understand because we really actually need to have the Department of Health here and perhaps the judiciary. And we need probably presentations from Dr. Champion, who's kind of overseeing that part of the system.

There is a bill before the legislature that would require the Department of Accounting and General Services to build or Department of Health to build a facility for the DCR to operate. Unfortunately, the way the bill is written, we have to testify against it because we don't have that forensic level of care.

And if they're going to build a facility for us, why not build it for yourself and run it with the professionals you already have?

Okay, if you could provide me with that number

I will.

I will take a look at that. And that would be for a step down facility.

That part of the bill isn't clear either. So that's why we. I told Mary Ann Sue, the Deputy Director, that we would be testifying against it because it's unclear what type of folks would be there. And then why would we have that facility if it would be a forensic level facility?

So the bill Is a bit vague, but I'll give you the number.

Okay, that would be very helpful. Go ahead, Representative Shimizu. And then I want to come back to for Mr. Johnson from Substance Abuse Council.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate Chair's thorough questioning and your thorough explanation. Do you have like a like a flowchart that kind of shows us what you verbalize to follow the path from entry to discharge?

I mean. Right, we can provide that the flowchart of the essential sequential phasing process for the person from the date they walk in, which doors they take, and to take this door, what path that leads to take this other door, what that leads to as well.

Thank you. I'm a visual person, so that's great.

Wait, one more question for the Director. And then Mr. Johnson from HSAC, Mr. Johnson from Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition said that money was reduced in the harm reduction center sector. Was that in your budget?

No.

Okay, Mr. Johnson, can you come up and explain that so that we understand that monies that flow into reentry services and programs are actually coming from different budgets. So when you said that money was reduced in the Harm Reduction Center for Substance Abuse Coalition Members, what were you referring to?

Department of Health.

Okay. Can you-

The money flows into Department of Health. The only money that really comes in from public safety would be that we have in facility services. We have a women's treatment center that Hina Mauka runs and then Salvation Army is heavily in for outpatient.

But otherwise all the funding that they're doing for reentry would come to us and we would use Department of Health funding.

Okay, so can you explain for Committee Members the difference between those kinds of different services that are provided by your members both in facility and outside of facility? So that we understand. And then the contracting process for those community based services.

Well, those inside the, inside the facilities, it comes through a bid process through managed by the public safety. And we provide, I think the residential beds and women is a therapeutic living model or program model. So it is like a residential 50 bed separate from the other community. And you know, being separate, it builds trust.

And then they work on it builds a therapeutic environment so the women don't mix with the others. And it has phenomenal success of being what a trustful environment could do. And so they keep out of the general population.

Otherwise when they step out of jail, then they're going to turn into Medicaid expenses when you qualify for signing up for that and or Department of Health which covers you until you can get into Medicaid. So those services. So you basically are uninsured many times.

And then the Department of Health covers that and then the rest of us move into this. So the services for Department of Health will cover. They do, they cover. In my opinion it's a very small budget of the Department of Health. But me saying that.

But I would say, you know, you're looking at residential treatment, you're looking at a lot of outpatient sites. There aren't very many residential centers in the State of Hawaii. So it covers that. And then you have some larger number of outpatient which is mostly funded by Medicaid and commercial insurance. But very few vendors are having that.

So you would probably see typically I CEO of Hina Mauka too. So I would say Hina Mauka and are residential. You would see more complex patient model. I think we're the only one that's really most complex which.

So we would say we would take you if you have a substance abuse problem, but we also take you if you have a mental health problem including you know, especially PTSD and co occurring disorders. But we also have, we have doctors and nurses. So we're able to take on the severely mentally ill.

And because we have doctors and nurses and we're the only ones really doing that, we can take on comorbidities. So if you have cancer, you have you, you know wounds, if you have injuries, we could take you. So we're a 64 bed place. So that's the only place that takes you.

So if you have diabetes and you come out, you have a real problem accessing treatment other than through our one facility. So all those are Department health design services for doing that. And our plug nowadays is to say that especially the ADAD part of that is that it really needs to be co occurring.

Who has just a substance abuse problem and doesn't have a mental health problem at least anxiety. I mean even in the kids, as you know, 50% of the kids have had an anxiety event. So we're saying that that's where the evolution should happen to.

Okay, so let me.

You better cut me off before.

Let me ask for the 50 beds for women, for example. Let's just use that as a hypothetical and follow the. Follow the person, follow the money. You have someone from DCR who is in one of your residential beds and so is actually is in community at that point but is still.

They're within the facility. Double triple C. The beds are.

The WC beds are within the facility. And you have staff coming in.

We come in, yes.

Okay. Now does your program. I'm assuming if they're on their way out. Does your program help with the Medicaid signup and those things so that as they're exiting then you have that warm handoff?

Yes, we do a lot of that within the next door to us is mental health groups are working on that. And then we have the Bridge House working with the Bridge House to find housing. So there's a group of us in there. And then we also facilitate them coming out. And then we provide aftercare services after that.

So we generally move them to like an outpatient type service afterwards, you know, in the community. And then so all that is good referrals and good handouts.

And at that point, okay, so say that individual, that person has received everything, the services they need in in facility, they're now exiting. Are there facilities that your coalition members then operate where they also continue to get services and then now they're moved to the DOH pot of money. Is that a correct thing to say?

Yes.

Okay, and then. But you said-

The housing would probably be clean and sober housing.

Okay, and then those are funds that DoH controls.

Yes.

Okay, and then where did you say the harm reduction? Who reduced the harm reduction monies? Was it just by contract?

It was- no, it was the- it was the Department of Health reduced the treatment funding to pay for the harm reduction. So they didn't get funding for harm reduction. The Department of Health didn't get much. So now they reduced the funding over here to pay for that, to build infrastructure and to grow that.

And so now it's becoming like the federal government in part mandated that the 10% of the funding has to go to harm reduction. And then now as of January, the federal government is saying, well, we're removing those restrictions because the treatment got reduced and now people want treatment and so they can't get the treatment.

So this whole thing is like all a mess.

No. So you have partners who do the in facility treatment. You assist with the warm transfers. We know that sometimes the transfers are not as effective.

So maybe we need to take a look at a little bit of the work that's happening there and then you move them quickly into Medicaid and so then you can get them covered potentially and find all those other resources for them, for other housing supports, you know, moving them into, I don't know, kahale or that's the space that you're working on.

And again, that's.

But not kahale because they're very functional.

Well, my understanding is that there's all different kinds of kahale that are being developed by the governor's team. That might include some potential housing for this population that we're talking about. That might be.

It could be though most are so functional, they clean a sober house and they get their own independent living fairly quickly. All this, you know, all your front loading, all this treatment, they're coming out very, very functional. That's, that's a very.

Or they're cycling in and out. Well, they may be cycling in and out because there's another problem that we know that's happening.

Not so much on the. You're. You're looking at very few women getting in this treatment. Getting a lot of services.

I'm talking about the pre trial detainee population.

And the male population.

Yeah, I'm not talking about-

That population I'm not talking about.

Yeah that's way different. Okay.

So different. So,

So lets not say that. Yeah. Amongst your coalition partners, who are the biggest contractors for these community based projects or community based contracts?

For Department of Health.

Let's do it in facility and for Department of Health, who are your biggest contractors?

Well, in facility would be Salvation Army. Inside, the adult men's doing education and outpatient. And the women's would be Hina Mauka providing the residential services inside there. 50 beds usually is running about 20 or 25 beds right now due to remodeling, reconstruction.

Outside, you know, you're looking at the large agencies are Hina Mauka, Salvation Army, Sand Island, Poiolani, Aloha House of Maui. Those are the residential. Not too many. Okay.

And what are the community based treatments? So that. Not.

That's community based treatment.

I'm sorry, not the residential treatment. Do you have other providers?

We do have outpatient sites. There are outpatient agencies. There are Hina Mauka, Salvation Army and well, and Aloha House. Those three got by far the largest outpatient facilities. And then you have some much smaller agencies providing some outpatient mostly through Medicaid.

And who are those smaller agencies?

Well, there's- there would be Aloha House. There would be. Trying to think of this. Not too many.

So what I'm looking at-

There's a bunch of smaller independent ones that I don't always remember their names right off the bat.

So from in facility to commercial, on.

The BISAC, you have the, you know, big island. On the, you have BISAC, which is a pretty good sized agency handling the big Island. The big Island. I want to mention them. They're a very good agency.

So what I'm. Okay, so I'm trying to follow again, follow the patient and follow the services and follow the money. In facility you have Salvation Army doing services.

Then those patients potentially flow into community based residential treatment areas that are Hina Mauka, again, Salvation Army has people, Sand Island, Aloha House and then outpatient agencies, Hina Mauka, Sand Island, Aloha House and then some.

Smaller agencies and Po'ailani too for the severely mentally ill.

Okay. Do you know if within your contractors they have a good sense of the movement of people through all of these facilities, the flow and if there's any places where they might be getting stopped up unnecessarily?

I think that a lot of the people, other than, let's say that one residential I mentioned, a lot of them are not getting connected to all the services.

Well, once. But once they're in your system. Right. Because your system and your providers focus on a continuum of care. Now it sounds like we need a whole lot more providers potentially to see.

More on the Salvation Army one. You know, they're providing services in there. They're not. The linkage is kind of good, but there's a lot of work need to be done for linkages there coming out of the adult, the men's side.

And I think the reentry programs that have started over the last 7-8 years have really done better to connect us. But there's more work to be done there. That's why the funding and everything else. So it's not really flowing as well as that.

But you would still say that, you know, in our residentials you're probably looking at 28-30% of the beds are for offenders. So you really are. You know, we're treating, we're treating all the vets, we're treating the community at large. We're treating, you know, there's a lot of different funding sources.

We're treating adult mental health people coming out of the hospital. So we're really a variety of an eclectic group treating all kinds of people.

I understand that and I appreciate the work that you folks are doing.

But I guess what the question that I'm asking from our point of view, just as we're asking for transparency from the department, we need to have transparency of the entire system from facility to community and how the money is getting spent, spent and how people are flowing through the system.

And if there are problems, it's not just with DCR, it's actually with the whole system and people moving through the system with different agencies, having different authorities and funding sources.

I'm kind of saying the same thing that I used to say in the Department of Health, but now I can say it more explicitly here before people like Mr. Johnson, but, but I mean, I'm not saying any. Right, right. Am I saying. Am I characterizing it correctly?

Is that like that's kind of system that we have to have transparency over?

Yeah, you're looking at. You're looking at the kind of systems that we have is driven by a lot of the funding systems. And the funding systems like insurance have rules and they had different ideas on budget and what they want to spend for, what the state wants to spend for and has that. So we have staff.

That's all. Their job is to find different funding sources. So you may work with a.

The parole judiciary funding for a few weeks, and then you got to move over to Department of Health, and then when you get done with that, you got to move over to Medicaid and then they all have opinions on how long the length of stay is and whether you could do it. And it's not always driven clinically.

Kind of driven clinically, but not. And then how do we connect with housing? It really is all of us connecting with clean and sober homes and filling them up with. And they're a lot more than four to $500. It's a crazy world.

And it needs oversight for a lot of things to see from one end to the other.

And I think I really appreciate you being here because I think you highlight the way that the system is not just about DCR. It's actually. And Mr. Director Johnson also said that. Right. It's. It's the orders that judiciary may issue.

It's then the periods of time in which these persons are actually in the custody of DCR, but then they flow through the system. They flow into the responsibilities of other agencies and not simply DCR.

Well, I think to summarize what you're saying is a really good point is just. It's not just one system that can control any of this. It's a huge complicated interrelated, and we've kind of found our way how to navigate there. Could it be improved if there was overall oversight or looking at it or influencing it? Yes.

Okay. Well, I'll let. Yes. I'm going to give the last question to Iwamoto and then we'll continue.

And members, you know, I know that folks are nervous about the time, but I think this is really important because this is kind of the critical work that we have to move the department in, and this is helping to educate all of us with these questions.

So, representative, so Director Johnson, the flowchart you're going to that Representative Shimizu requested. Right. It's really important. I think to see the choke points, Mr. Johnson. To see the choke points that actually clog up. You know what I mean? Like you.

You actually did say that if there's room, then you'll send them outside of your facility, but if not, then it keeps you bodies in your facilities. And I would. So out of 64 beds, you mentioned one of your treatment facilities, 64 beds. Are there ever any vacancies? Are they always full?

The. Let me put it this way. Before COVID they were full with 300 people on the wait list today due to funding reductions there. We run around 55. So we have empty beds because we don't have funding for it.

Okay, See, this is where we build the. We spend all this money in infrastructure, but not enough services or hiring bodies to do the treatment. And that is also a larger part of the balance. Do we keep spending money on infrastructure and then the services get backed up?

So, yeah, it breaks your heart that we have 70 phone calls a day and we have empty beds.

That is really. That is really bad. So again, seeing where the choke points are that clog up the system is really important when you're doing the system mapping.

So then we can make sure that, hey, Department of Health, you know, because we know the governor's position on services for mental health services and how people should be diverted out of the incarceral system.

And properly treated. But if there's funding not flowing from the Department of Health and everyone's looking at where is this coming from, so that's important too. Choke points in money, choke points in the flow of bodies in treatment.

Yeah, very well said.

So what I'll do is follow up on this. We will ask Director Johnson to provide some of this information. But again, this information may, the choke points may actually reside outside of DCR. So I will ask Dr. Champion and his team to come and perhaps Department of Health because they are obviously clearly part of this conversation and they need to come before the Committee on Public Safety to explain themselves. But thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. All the Johnsons. Thank you all. All right, moving on.

If there are no further questions to House Bill 1300, this is the funding for correctional facilities. We have first up in support of Director Tommy Johnson.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. I'm Tommy Johnson, Director of Department of Correctional Rehabilitation. As with the previous measure, we support the intent of this. $30 million is in the Governor's Budget. And if this measure does move forward just as the other bill, we would ask the committees to defer to the Governor's Budget.

Thank you, Director. We have testimony and support from the Department of Accounting and General Services. We have testimony in opposition from EMUA Alliance. Testimony in support from Community alliance on Prisons.

Comments? I did not think it was support. Okay, go ahead.

Good morning again, Committee. Kat Brady testifying on behalf of Community Alliance on Prisons. This bill just brings up just an amazing question. How much of our hard earned money tax dollars is the state going to use to push a new OCCC without DCR talking to and answering the questions of the larger community advocates and family Members.

You know, there's a truism that says those who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution. Imagine if the state mandated that DCR hold meetings with communities around Oahu and talk with and answer questions of the communities most impacted by incarceration.

And then scheduled more Q and A sessions for the wider communities on Oahu so that everybody who wants to participate, who has questions would be willing and able to do that.

Imagine if we used millions of dollars that had been spent already on this top down project on more community alternatives such as mental health and physical health clinics, housing, job training, health care, et cetera. We would have already embarked on a real diversion program that reduces the population of our overcrowded OCCC.

We would be assisting people in jump starting their lives, creating good neighbors and preparing them to return Home Community alliance on Prisons asserts one Once again, to the government, jails are buildings. To the community, jails are people, our people. When this principle is followed that people matter, it makes a huge difference.

We don't create places of punishment and isolation. 100 plus years of research and practice has showed us that this approach doesn't work. It doesn't build the peaceful future that we hope for all our families. Before we spend any more money, let's figure out how to address the social ills that lead people to incarceration.

We have universities and advocates in Hawaii that have been researching this for decades.

Do we want to continue criminal college or do we want to carefully, carefully think about better alternatives, providing the services that so many communities lack that will help the people and communities be more peaceful and just so we respectfully ask the Committee to think about how our resources are spent using our precious resources to create more harm.

Incarceration is a social determinant of health. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Brady. I have testimony in opposition from Reimagining Public Safety in Hawaii Coalition. Liam Chin. Any other testifiers? Oh, go ahead. Right here.

Thank you. Hi, I'm on Zoom. Good morning everybody. Liam Chin, Reimagining Public Safety Coalition, representing 25 organization organizations and entities across the state. We are in strong opposition, Chair Belatti, to to this bill.

Per related Bill that we will be discussing next 1263, our coalition is calling on the state to pause any further planning and construction of the $1 billion 1300 bed facility being proposed by DCR. It would be the most expensive state funded project in Hawaii's history and continue the same failed approach to public safety.

I do want to say we agree with Director Johnson that something does need to be done about the conditions in OCCC. They're unacceptable. But there's a wide spectrum of solutions that can be employed to address these issues. We do not have to spend that much money.

Just to give you an example, Fulton County, where Atlanta is proposed a $1.7 billion super jail. And just recently the county commissioners changed direction and decided to do a renovation for around 250 to 300 million. That's a huge difference we're talking about.

So I want to just talk about this pause and why we think these bonds should not be issued. These two bills are related. What you're going to hear next, the pause does not mean no further action would be taken. What it means, and this is in line with what the Hawaii Correction Commission can you just.

Because we are going to get to the pause Bill. But if so. So we have your testimony in opposition and we need to move on.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm testified. These two bills are related. I'm explaining why we oppose Bill 1330, which is issuing the bond. The bond does not make sense because right now there is no plan in place for the systems that need to be in place related to diversion and rehabilitation. This is the cart before the horse.

We have 40%, at least of people sitting in jail today are homeless and many more are suffering from mental health and addiction. Our coalition has attended sequential intercept model trainings across the state. These were referenced earlier with judges, prosecutors, police.

We have been in the room with them here on Oahu and on the Big Island in the last year. And everybody agrees there is a robust diversion mandate and that we could decrease the jail population significantly immediately. The problem we have right now in this state is a severe underfunding of diversion infrastructure.

So what we're saying is do not issue these bonds. Do not move forward with this current proposal. We need to hit pause and first focus on decarcerating. We could reduce the jail population in half and then we could look at what type of facility is appropriate.

Why are we barreling forward with issuing these bonds and talking about moving forward? Can you wrap up please, sir? Super jail when we have not addressed the immediate solution at hand, which is diverting a significant amount of the jail population out immediately into supportive housing and mental health facilities.

So this is why we are in opposition to the bill.

All right, thank you, Mr. Chin. And I will note that you were commenting in, I think also in support of House Bill 1263, which is the next bill. But thank you for your. For your testimony on both bills at this time. All right, any other testifiers via Zoom? Any other testifiers in the room?

Laura Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members, Carrie Ann Shirota, on behalf of ACLU Hawaii, we oppose HB 1330, which is issuance of bonds. Now, if at some point the state were to decide upon building or construction, we believe that bonds would be the better approach than a P3 public private partnership, which we'll discuss later.

But it's going back to the fundamental issue. The state cannot afford to build both a mega jail with expanded bed capacity for about 1400 of our people, mostly Native Hawaiian people who are poor, houseless and suffering from co occurring disorders. And investing in diversion infrastructure. We have to make a choice.

For decades we have been investing in jail and prison as the default mechanism to all of our community challenges. A default. Instead of funding community based treatment we fund the jails. Instead of funding reentry housing, we Fund the jails. And what have we gotten in return? 50 to 60% recidivism rates, which does not enhance community safety.

So let's think about where we should put this money. I just want to point out a few quick statistics. OCCC as of December of last year 2024 nearly 70% of the people at OCCC were pretrial status. That is much higher than most jurisdictions.

And in states that have implemented bail reform and or diversion programs they have successfully reduced the number of people in jail anywhere from 30 to up to 60%. So again it's a choice. Do we keep funding the jail or do we fund community?

There is no wait list to get into our jail, but there are wait lists on every single island to get into substance abuse treatment. And that isn't just now when I worked for MEO best reintegration program this was 15 plus years ago. There was always a wait.

Sometimes we had to pay money to get our clients to transfer to another island. And on Kauai there's zero treatment residential beds. And so again where do we put our funding? But I also want to highlight sort of the positive because I know it seems like it's always like DCR.

We agree that this is a systems wide problem which requires systems wide solution and thinking. And so just to put it into perspective, years ago there was a choice by lawmakers because our juvenile detention center was full. We could have invested in more a bigger HYCF.

We even started to ship our girls juveniles to out of state private prisons. And the community said aole. No, it's not right.

We brought the young girls home and through systems wide a lawsuit, Department of Justice investigation but community stakeholders coming together in a task force we looked at the whole system and solutions and we have successfully reduced the number of youth and sustained it for over like 15 years. And we can apply that to the adult population.

And just last MCCC some years ago, 15 plus years ago was more overcrowded than any other facility any other. And they were planning to build a new regional complex on Maui for 800 or 900 beds. The community said no, let's invest it into the community.

If you look at the population data report that's put out weekly monthly, MCCC has less people in the jail currently than under both their operational and design capacity.

Please Director. And then we will allow for response. Ms. Shirota, can you. Sorry I do not have written testimony from you. So based upon your testimony, can you Also put that into writing.

I will. So I would just say look at the data and invest in Data Driven Solutions. It's not putting the money into more jails or expand it. Thank you.

Any other testifiers seeing None. Members? I'm going to ask a few questions. First, Director Johnson. First, there seems to be some misconceptions out there, so I want to just clear it up. This bill is actually identifying very clearly in it that this would be for General obligation bonds. Correct. So this is not general funds.

Correct.

So this is about monies that are going to be put into a planning process that we learned on Monday, does in fact include much of these. You know, the process that the Department of Attorney General that DAGS undergoes does involve meetings in communities, consultations with communities. That process is going to involve community engagement, correct?

Yeah. And I'd like to clear up. We did do community engagement. We've been going to the A neighborhood board for three years. We hired the UHCDC prior to the presentation yesterday. We hired them and we put no restrictions on them whatsoever. They held 123 talk story sessions. They did 18 site visits. They held three different symposiums.

They spoke with 82 organizations. They spoke with 10 policymakers. I don't know what else we can do.

Okay.

We put no restriction on whatsoever. So we've done our due diligence out there. And the recommendations in the final report that's just released, we are going to include those recommendations, some of those recommendations in the planning and design for the new OCCC and other facilities in the future.

We just cannot use all of the recommendations in the report for that for a single facility.

Okay. And then I'm going to ask one question, open it up to other Members and then if there are any further follow up questions, I will then conclude with questions. Director, did you want to correct any misstatements that you heard in any of the testimonies that were.

Yeah. OCCC is design capacity of 628. The current capacity, the current headcount at the facility is 928. So I want to make it clear. The design capacity, 628 design, the operational capacity is 954. Which means we start double bunking and triple bunking people in the cells. We have 928 there now.

So I want to make it clear that we're over where we should be by almost 50% over the design capacity if we wait with OCCC. I'll give you an example. I know you didn't ask that question, but I think it's important to note in 2016 or 17 or 18, the. The projected cost for OCCC was $535 million.

As of now, it's $937 million. That is an 87% increase in the cost of the facility. If we delay the facility for one or two years, you're looking at over 100 to 200 $1.0 million more.

At some point, we're going to price ourselves out of a new facility, and it's only a matter of time before the Department of Justice comes knocking on the door. And when they do, I want to make it clear we lose autonomy. They will tell the state what to do and what to build.

Okay. And I'm going to ask one final question and open up to Members. When I looked at the report of the uhdcc, there are recommendations, but. And I heard at the Monday meeting that Department of DAGS is open to. That is open to integrating that.

So this perception being pursued out there that that state government is saying no to community is completely not accurate. Am I misunderstanding what happened and what was presented to this Committee on Monday?

No, that is correct. And the UHCDC also never called for a pause in OCCC. Actually, we can do both. We should incorporate some of the recommendations of the planning and design of any new facility. We can do that and correct the system at the same time.

But I want to make it clear, in order to correct a system, it's a much harder. A much harder task, and it will take resources and it will take time, but doesn't mean we can't build a facility that can meet the needs of our folks today and into the future.

Thank you, Members. I'll open it up to questions now. Representative Iwamoto, thank you.

I just wanted to say that the earlier testimony regarding the context that the testifier was sharing was Maui. And I believe she was speaking about McCann in those numbers. Not. And so I know there's a.

I apologize. I thought she was talking about. She was talking about OCCC.

Yes.

And she is correct, though, that at present the design capacity is 209 and the headcount at Maui is 194. So it's just below.

Okay, that's. Well, again, the data you shared with us on Maui made it look like it was way below capacity, which was impressive. Which was a feather in your cap, you know, so. But the point being is that when the community speaks out and kind of pushes towards services and rehabilitation, reintegration, that it does affect population.

And I just wanted to clarify that one of the biggest, you know, we talked about bodies moving through the system and where the choke points are. One of the biggest choices choke points is bail reform. And I think people mentioned that.

Have you been testifying in support of bail reform to stop stop the amount of work you need to do?

The bail reform bill, if I'm not mistaken, was approved by the Legislature two years ago, but the Governor decided to veto the bill. Right. And where were you on that? I don't recall, to be honest with you. I do recall there was some pushback between the prosecutors and the Police Department at the end.

And that may be why former Governor Ige may have vetoed the measure. I really don't know. I wasn't part of those discussions. But I want to clear up another point. The reason why the regional public safety complex didn't go forward. It was actually the Puanene project that we wanted to build a facility above the National Guard armory.

For that the cost was $240 million. At that time, the Governor felt it was too much. Now there was another later proposal to build a regional complex and I don't think that's going to go anywhere because there are water rights issues. Thank you. I have a follow up with for Kat Brady from the Committee.

No, hold on. I'm gonna let Representative Shimizu ask a question.

Thank you. Chair. Sorry, Rep. Director Johnson.

Yes.

The testimony that Liam Chin provided regarding diversion options alternatives that would almost preclude the need for a brand new facility. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm not opposed to deflection. There's two different things. There's jail deflection and jail diversion. Jail deflection would be like the Dade County model where when, when police come in contact with someone, they have the opportunity to take that person to a mental health facility where they get treatment and services.

Or if that doesn't work, when they have their first appearance before the judge, the judge can provide, can divert the person. We are at step two, diversion. Where after post booking they come to us. After the first court appearance, they come to us. We don't have jurisdiction in those cases. The courts have jurisdiction in those cases.

So I have jurisdiction over the 3,800 folks in my custody. I have jurisdiction over about 5%. So we have to take everybody that comes to us. So in order for the deflection to work at those off ramps, the community has to have the programs and services that people need.

Mental health treatment, they have to have housing, need to have substance abuse treatment. When it's post booking, we need the Same things, those same off ramps. What the state lacks now, what my understanding Dr.

Champion is working on is that model to see what the needs are to work with the different organizations, Department of Health, Judiciary, Prosecutors, police, to make sure we can get those, they can get those services in place, those off ramps, so it can take place.

So I guess that goes back to our previous questioning and the flowchart and identifying choke points and how we can improve those areas and the integration and really maximizing the efficiency of the system and the dollars spent.

I agree. And I think now our system works in silos and I think those silos have to be broken down and we have to not be so territorial.

Okay, I'm going to question for Representative Sousa.

I just wanted to know, I haven't been on a visit to OCCC, so what is the current State of occc? Just I'm kind of going back. I know we're forward looking right now, but what is the current state of OCCC?

And second part to that question is what is your rebuttal to some of the testimony that says that we should just renovate instead of build a new prison?

Parts of parts of OCCC are 111 years old. In order to renovate, we'd have to move those folks somewhere. We have no place to put them right now. If we start renovating, if you look at the facility, it's going to cost almost as much because you got to take it to the ground.

The wiring is not up to code, the plumbing is not up to code, the building is falling apart. So if you do take a tour, look up at the ceiling, take a look through.

I think OCCC is being held together with literally duct tape and gorilla glue because we've asked for money repeatedly from the Legislature over decades for repair and maintenance of the facility. So we have what's called deferred maintenance program. All that means is we don't have Money. We have 800 programs statewide that are deferred maintenance.

The prison and jails operate 247. They never close. So there's a lot of wear and tear on the infrastructure, electrical, plumbing, sewer furnishings and the staff itself.

So right now when you going through OCCC is an eye opener because the conditions are so abhorrent that how can we expect to people to try to rehabilitate when the conditions are so bad? And how do we expect our people to want to come to work when it's so dingy and dank in that facility?

Thank you for the question. I have a quick Follow up Chair.

If that's okay, you can have a follow up. And Members, this speaks to the fact that we are going to have facility site visits for this Committee so that we can understand the State of these facilities and what the responsibility of the Legislature has been in not funding. Because this is not just about DCR. Go ahead.

I agree. Thank you. Just one last question. How would this affect the inmate population? I know we've been sending our inmates to Saguaro, et cetera. And so would we not be doing that once we build this new facility or would we be bringing back inmates to reintegrate back into Hawaii?

It's two different populations. So we're clear, the jail population of those pretrial detainees, sentence misdemeanors, probation and parole violators, and those people coming back through the system to go through work furlough, that's the jail population. Those folks on the mainland are prison population. We would need to bring back. We would need to build a new prison facility.

But I want to make it clear right now we have about 900, 937 on the mainland. We had to do a temporary surge of 240 because we had to close down two modules at Halawa. In order to do emergency electrical repairs as we finish those modules and moving those inmates to the modules that are repaired.

And once we get the last modules done, those 240 will come back. So we'll hover around 700 on the mainland. So we would need a new medium security facility to bring the folks back from the mainland. I will later on I will discuss the jail population. Excuse me, the prison population.

And where I think we can do better with respect to moving people downstream faster.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to let one last set of questions from Members and then we're going to move on because, you know, I think some of the questions actually might be referring to other bills. But I will allow one more question on this matter about the bonds for. For the new facility.

Go ahead, Representative Shimizu.

And then I have a question for Liam Chin. He. He mentioned an example on California where they pivoted. What was the name of that facility?

Sorry, that was Fulton County. Which is where? Atlanta in Georgia. zero, Fulton County. Yep, Fulton County. So they had proposed a $1.7 billion super jail similar to what's being proposed here in Hawaii.

And the elected county officials there recently changed direction and decided to do a full scale renovation which reduced the price from 1.7 billion to my understanding is somewhere between 250 to 300 million again. Fulton County, Georgia. And that, that my understanding was a similarly old facility. But you know, $300 million is a lot.

You can do a lot with that. And in a time of our state's situation, that's quite a spectrum. So that was the point of why I brought it up.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. I mean, we would still need to relocate them during that renovation. So that's another situation. But thank you. Thank you. Chair.

Representative Yamoto, this is for Director Johnson regarding General obligation bonds. And you heard the chair mention that this isn't coming from General funds, it's coming from General obligation bonds. What's the difference?

Well, my understanding is the Governor put the $30 million in for the General Fund to come out of a funds. The bond funds would be something that have to go through budget and finance and he would have to go out to see what would be the good interest rate the state would get on the $30 million.

The state only has X amount of dollars that they can go out and purchase bonds with. I don't know. I don't believe that the Governor and the budget and finance may want to spend those precious bond dollars on this particular project. This is why they put it in a General Fund.

I'm not sure, to be honest with you, how many hundreds of $1.0 million that the state has available to go out for bonds each year. There would be a question for budget.

And finance and Chair, would you. I, I don't understand the difference to taxpayers. Sorry, I wasn't sure because I felt like you were pointing that out as a distinction.

It is a distinction because General obligation bonds are monies that we go out and basically borrowing to build out facilities that we need. So it's just different pots of money. So when people are saying we're spending all of this money, yes, we are, but it's not. We spend General. We typically use General revenues for operational expenses.

And that's money we have today. That's money. Whereas General obligation bonds, it's money that we don't have that we're paying interest on, that the principal you have to pay back. So General obligation bonds are actually more expensive to taxpayers?

Well, no, because that's how we also Fund the critical services that we need. We can take this up later.

If I could clarify 1.0 with respect to OCCC and earlier a testifier mentioned that we were building a 1400 bed facility. It's actually 1300 bed facility and 250 of those beds, which we don't have today, would be for the reentry center at the facility, we would expand the work furlough program for part of that bed space.

So we'd keep La Maca where it is, but also expand the work furlough beds, which is one of the things that the public has asked us to do.

And second, instead of returning parole and probation violators to the hard bed at halawa, which costs $307 a day, we would put them at this facility, reassess them, and then put them back out, providing they don't have new charges and we're able to get them reassessed and back out before they lose that tenuous connectivity with their families and before they lose the employment that they need.

So I think the way we use the bed space that we're proposing is smarter than we're using bed space now. And it also allows us to put more people on work furlough than we currently have because we're restricted at La maca to only 90 people on work furlough. We can go to 120.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you.

All right, moving now to House Bill 1263. This would establish a moratorium on the issuance of an RFP and construction of any new or expanded facility from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2028, including the planned construction of a new facility to replace the existing Oahu Community Correctional Center. Establishes a Criminal Justice Diversion Task Force and appropriates funds. Members, we have testimony in opposition from Director Tommy Johnson.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee. I'm Tommy Johnson, the Director of the Department of Correctional Rehabilitation. I'm not going to read my testimony. I'll summarize some key points of the testimony. One, I believe the bill is flawed in section one, page two, page 13 through 15. And again on page section one, page three, lines three through 15. It makes some statements about 86% of the people incarcerated, which is not true.

In addition, the report that the information provided in the Commission's report to the legislatures and the Governor was from a draft report that I provided to the coordinator that should not have been released and provided out to the public. The final report was just released yesterday.

And in addition, in that report, it doesn't call for a pause for OCCC. In fact, Cathi Schar made it clear yesterday's briefing that we should do both. That we can do both or we should do both. Excuse me. In addition, the first recommendation to replace OCCC was made in 1998. And if we'd have built the facility again in 2018, which was 20 years later, it would have cost us 525 million.

Estimated cost now is 937 million. Every month we pause at 3.5 to 5 million dollars in construction escalation costs. So if we pause this, as the bill calls for two years, you're looking at somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars in additional cost. And in addition, again the current facility is not built for rehabilitation. It's not built for programs. It was added onto over the years hodgepodge. It's man hour intensive.

So right now we have a complement of 411 corrections officers. A new facility would substantially be reduced to about 300 corrections officers, which would save almost 16 to 20 million dollars a year without jeopardizing public safety. So you might say well what's going to happen to those people that get fired? No, those folks would be moved to fill our vacancies in our other Oahu facilities, which are cut down on the $22 million we spend a year in overtime. Thank you.

Thank you, Director. Comments from Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

I'm Martha Torney, Commissioner. First of all, I want to clarify that the Department—or the Commission—did not release this letter to the public. Like Director Johnson said, it was released—we sent it to the Legislature, and they referred to our letter in their Bill. So, we did not release it to the public. We have—we do support replacing OCCC.

It cannot be rehabilitated. I want to make that very clear. That's impossible, for the very reasons that he gave on that. But we do ask that the—we are concerned about the projected population to be in that facility, and we believe the projections are too high, if the Legislature supports reducing the population, primarily through bail reform.

The largest group of people that we have at OCCC, which is more than 50%, are the pretrial population. And in—even the consultants to the Department, Curtiss Pulitzer, who worked on the population projection, said in a public hearing, that if you initiate these reforms, you can reduce the projection population by approximately 250 people.

And that's what we're asking for. But again, we support replacing OCCC.

Thank you for that very clear statement. Testimony, in opposition, from the Department of Prosecuting Attorney. Testimony, in support, of the Office of the Public Defender.

Good morning. Sonny Ganaden, Deputy Public Defender, the Department supports. We'd like to reference the University of Hawaii Community Design Center findings. We believe you should move this Bill along, maybe play with the dates a little bit.

This is part of a more global conversation about the use of pretrial happening throughout the state, that you folks are now becoming aware of—well, some of you folks are becoming aware of. You're also aware of the bail Bill that is moving through the House and Senate. That's SB 725 and HB 675, introduced by Chair Belatti.

There have been several task forces introduced the—to discuss this conversation. The first one, in recent years, initiated in 2016, by HDR 85. In 2018, the full report titled, "Creating Better Outcomes in Safer Communities." Many folks in newer positions have been educated as to the necessity to replace this facility. I say just move it along, change the date.

Thank you. I'm sorry, did I say you were in opposition? I—my eyes are not working—you're in support.

My colleague, Ms. Cheng, wrote the testimony and we are in support.

Okay. Okay, thank you. We have testimony, in opposition, from the Department of Accounting and General Services. Testimony, in support, from Reimagining Public Safety in Hawaii Coalition. Mr. Liam Chinn, I—you had commented on this, on the earlier Bill, so if you could just highlight your—share your highlights.

Yeah, sorry. Actually, I simply referenced it in the earlier Bill. I think there's some confusion here. I just mentioned it, I didn't make comments on it. I just wanted to reference it. So, I—in this case, I'm curious. I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

Please present. Please provide your testimony.

So, I just wanted to clarify with the Hawaii Correctional Oversight Commission—the letter that was sent to the Governor and the meetings that they most recently held, the public meetings—supported, officially, a pause on moving forward?

The letter to the Governor mentions a pause multiple times, and the Commission itself had previously voted on a pause on moving forward. And then in the latest meeting, that pause remained in effect. So, I just wanted to clarify that, that that was the position of the Oversight Commission, which somewhat aligns with what...

Mr. Chinn, thank you. We're having—can you, can you move on?

I'm sorry, I'm clarifying why this, why we're in support of a pause, is we are in alignment with the Oversight Commission, and their reasoning is that there are no systems yet in place for diversion or rehabilitation, and that those need to happen first before we move forward with actual planning and construction.

As mentioned, diversion infrastructure is severely underfunded right now in the state, and we need to focus on funding diversion infrastructure, supportive housing.

We've talked about the pretrial population and bail reform, but also, just the fact that 40% of the people in jail now are homeless and could be sitting in a community-based setting, while they await trial, is critical.

Also, judges have repeatedly said that the question is, divert to where? They said they're open to diversion but divert to where there's a lack of places. So, we need to first work on the diversion piece of this and then figure out what facility—size facility—and what type of facility is appropriate. This is about a sequencing of issues here.

And again, I'm referencing the Oversight Commission's recommendation for a pause, because they say basically the same thing. None of these key systems are yet in place and the Department of Corrections has no track record at all in implementing these types of systems.

So, before we write a check for $1 billion and move forward with committing the state to this enormous project, let's first take a minute to fix this side of the equation. How are we going to divert people, significantly reduce the jail population, which is right, we've got, we can do it right now, we just need to fund more supportive housing options.

We need to leverage Medicaid funds for mental health and community health services we can massively decarcerate and then let's assess what type of facility is possible.

This is simply asking us for more time to work on this, as a community, as a State Legislature, before, before we move forward with planning something, a facility, without having first figured out what's actually needed.

Okay. Thank you.

We cannot look at today's situation and assume that this is where we're going to be moving forward.

And the last thing I'd say is earlier in my—it was a 1,300-bed facility that's being proposed—this is larger than the current facility, and research has shown that if you build a larger facility, judges will fill those beds.

So, this, this will continue on the same track we're on, despite the opportunities in front of us to go in a very different direction. A pause is in the best interest of taxpayers, and in the best interest of the people that may be locked up there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chinn. We have testimony, in support, from Luanna Peterson; testimony, in support, from Marissa Commey; testimony, in support, from Carla Allison. Members, all of those are individuals who are part of the Reimagining Public Safety in Hawaii Coalition, who Mr. Liam Chinn was also speaking on behalf of.

I will note, Ms. Carla Allison is also with the Honolulu Police Commission Task Force. We have testimony, in support, from Community Alliance on Prisons.

Hello again. Kat Brady, testifying on behalf of Community Alliance on Prisons. You know, building a jail, or any kind of correctional facility, takes thinking and planning to include who's going to live and work there. What kinds of services are—will be—needed, how much space will be required for these classes, programs, and services to thrive?

What will the living quarters be like? Will they mimic the outside world and be kind of normalized? That will really help people with reentry. It makes it less intimidating. We remember when Saguaro opened in 2007, in about three months, we started Community Alliance on Prisons.

Started getting phone calls from people saying the modules are being flooded, and it seems like the water from the showers is flooding the modules. So, I called the Deputy Director for Corrections, at the time, and we met and talked about it, because I was really concerned that it was a health issue. And the—he said he would investigate. He did and came back and said there was no problem.

Then, in the next three months, I received a lot of calls from Saguaro saying, "Oh, they're actually digging up the showers. The drains are too high and that's why, you know, the modules were flooded." So, I use that as something that we need to be careful about.

In Halawa, with the design of this new jail, they went through all sorts of things to do their due diligence, and then they found out, oh my God, the Animal Quarantine Station can't move.

So, here they were planning for this facility to be at the Animal Quarantine Station, and nobody had ever looked to see that that site was available. That's called due diligence. And that is my big concern about P3s, because they build on the cheap and then we get stuck with the Bill.

So, with a moratorium and really and truly engaging the community with real information, not public relations, a better outcome can be found. As the Bill states, this is a systems approach and the reason so many people, oh, and it's really a best practice.

If Hawaii doesn't address the reason that so many people who were homeless when they were arrested are incarcerated, we'll never really emerge from this vicious and vengeful cycle, that has served no one except the vendors who have found a population of incarcerated people and their families that they can exploit.

Community Alliance on Prisons respectfully asks the Committee to think about what Hawaii is doing, continuing the same practice for over 100 years, with lots of proof that it doesn't work, and then pouring more resources into the same thing. Why would we do that, when we know that there are better ways to accomplish safe, healthy, and just communities?

Mahalo for the chance to share our thoughts on what the community calls the "Jail Fail." Thank you.

Do we have the paper copies for Community Alliance on Prisons? I do not have that on my binder. If that could be provided to me.

Testimony, in support, Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice. Testimony, in support, E Kolu Mea Nui. Testimony, in support, Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. Testimony, in support, Imua Alliance. Testimony, in support, Kahului, Hawaii.

Testimony, in support, Green Party of Hawaii. We have numerous testifiers in support—individual testifiers. Any other testifiers? I'm sorry, we do have Alfred Medeiros, testifying in support, from Zoom. You there? Nope. Oh, is there an Emily Sarasa in the room? Emily, please come up.

I'm sorry. We also—is Kristen Young, Kencho Gurung, or Raelyn Reyno Yeomans in the room?

I think they're on zoom.

Go ahead, Ms. Sarasa.

Aloha, Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto, and Members of the Committee. My name is Emily Sarasa. I'm a resident of Kaka'ako and a recent Richardson grad. As you know, our jails are severely overcrowded, in particular OCCC and HCCC. The pretrial and misdemeanor population here in the state is 87%, when you compare it to our sentenced felon population.

So, what that tells us is that we have people in our custody who probably should be on supervised release in the community, would be better served, and we're spending approximately $307 a day to keep people in custody who may have a $50 bail.

We also have people in our custody who clearly have mental health issues, who, if it weren't for their mental health illness, they probably would not be involved in the criminal justice system. Jails are the worst place for these folks because it's the least effective, most costly.

There needs to be some type of intermediate place for them to be in the community, where they can receive the services, housing, and the help they need, instead of coming to jail, which, again, is $307 a day.

The statement I read after my introduction is a direct quote from Director Johnson's testimony before a Senate informational briefing on January 7th of this year. According to our own Department of Corrections, it has many people in its custody who probably should be in the supervised release in the community, where they would be better served.

DCR also admits that jail is the worst place for many of the people in its custody with mental health issues. So, it makes absolutely no sense that DCR is testifying in opposition to this measure and wants to build a mega jail that Hawaii simply does not need.

The money should be used instead for a state-run residential treatment center. It could be used for more Kauhale housing. It could be used for mobile showers for our houseless neighbors. It could be used to improve existing conditions at OCCC. Please support HB 1263, in a 3-year moratorium on this $1 billion waste of a project.

Instead of allowing this unnecessary super jail planning to move forward, I ask that you support measures that will actually make Hawaii safer and healthier. And I think that there may be people who have already made up their mind about this Bill.

But I hope you consider the testimony of all of the community Members who have come out in support, in person and on Zoom. Thank you for scheduling it, and for your consideration.

Thank you. Testifiers on Zoom, is there a Melinda Healani Sonoda-Pale Ka Lahui, Hawaii? Kencho Gurung? Raelyn Reyno Yeomans?

Hi, good morning. My name is Kencho. I'm calling in from Hilo, testifying in support of HB 1263. I want to echo everything that the ACLU and Kat Brady have said. They're really the experts on this issue and they lead with compassion.

As Rep. Iwamoto noted earlier, a large percentage, 60% of all people in Hawaii's jails, are sitting there pretrial, often because they can't afford bail. This is punitive towards poor people. Between 30 and 40 of all people sitting in Hawaii's jails right now are houseless, and there's a misconception that houseless people are flown here.

A recent survey from Hawaii island showed that only 4% of people receiving household services are recent arrivals, and a 2023 article in the Community Mental Health Journal reports that, in a survey of unsheltered people, over 70% were Kanaka Maoli. Increased incarceration makes our houseless problem worse.

And so, if this project were allowed to continue, we'd be paying out massive funds to punish an already vulnerable population, that is disproportionately Kanaka Maoli and low-income. Please support HB 1263. Mahalo.

Thank you. Next in zoom, either Raelyn Reyno Yeomans or Kristen Young?

Good morning, Committee Members. My name is Kristen Young, and I live in the Makiki Punchbowl area. I am in support of HB 1263, and ditto to all the testimony and support before me. In my individual capacity, I participate as a Member of the Reimagining Public Safety in Hawaii Coalition and Faith Action for Community Equity, and we've advocated for bail reform in the past.

And I work at a large church in Honolulu, so I'm coming from that perspective right now. All kinds of people pass through our church campus, often just to hang out and rest, as they should be able to.

We see folks who are unsheltered, folks struggling with mental health or substance abuse, and once in a while, our buildings and ground staff ask people to leave the campus if they are being disruptive or are perceived as a potential threat to others on campus.

Sometimes individuals are trespassed, and staff are asked to call the police if they return to campus. And I feel deeply conflicted by this. Churches should be a place of sanctuary, but as you all know, as we know, there are many issues that prayer cannot solve, and churches are not always equipped to handle.

And there are a few places we can successfully refer folks to. At the same time, I would never want to call the police on someone because they could end up in jail, or worse. People don't need to be locked up. They need supportive housing, health care, treatment, food, community services, and support.

And we can't fund these things if we're spending nearly $1 billion on a new jail and even more to then keep people in there. We desperately need divergent infrastructure and services, and I know you know this. Investing in a new jail would be divesting in infrastructure and services that could truly support our community, and I believe this would be a huge mistake.

Please pass HB 1263, to allow the possibility to entertain other solutions that are more fiscally responsible, address root causes, and better reflect what the community needs. Mahalo Nui for hearing this Bill and to those that introduced it.

Thank you. Testimony from an Alfred Medeiros, if you're on Zoom. Any others on Zoom?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Lorenn, Lorenn Walker with the Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice, and mahalo for hearing this Bill and for all of your public service work. Our organization has been doing work in diversion for 45 years. We started 45 years ago, with a juvenile diversion program through the family court.

And the last 20 years, over 20 years now, we've been working with the prisons on doing diversion and it's not happening. There has, there is such opportunity. We have such good social capital in Hawaii. We could do so much and it's not happening, and we need to do these other measures first instead of building a massive prison, that only increases, it increases criminality. It's not—it increases criminality.

Like Kat Brady said, it's called crime college. That's what prisons and jails do when you segregate people with bad behavior.

Remember last year, the case of the poor woman walking down the street who got splattered with acid? She, he, she was hurt by a perpetrator who was, who did it, because of a guy he met in prison, in jail. So, these kinds of stories, this happens all the time. People learn how to be better criminals in jail.

So, I think we definitely need a pause. We've done what—our organization does research, that's what we do, we do evidence-based research to try to find out what really helps people stay law abiding and desist from crime, and all of our research tells us that a new prison, this new jail, is not going to do it.

And that we have to try diversion first and a meaningful, meaningful diversion.

Thank you. Ms. Walker.

Any other testifiers in the room? Okay, sir, come up and identify. And then we have Ms. Eaton. And then we'll, we'll do that, and then Ms. Shirota—do you have written testimony, Ms. Shirota? Okay, that needs to be provided. Go ahead, sir.

Hi, my name is John Deutzman. I stand by my written testimony, and I'm a three-time crime victim of vicious, frightening harassment by chronic, unstable offenders in my neighborhood. And I've studied our justice system here for the last four years.

And I've come to the conclusion, we have a pretty compassionate justice system in place, that only assures that those who are the worst of the worst are detained in jail.

But I want to say that we can't pause this project because there is a certain percentage of every population that is incorrigible, unfixable, and needs to be in jail for the safety of the community. And we needed that jail 10 years ago. But I'm here for a more important reason.

The underlying problem here is not what was discussed by all advocates—the problem is that a person's right to freedom, which has been fought for by the ACLU, supersedes their urgent need for treatment. That's the bottom line.

After four years of looking at this—hours a day—once again, a person's right to freedom supersedes their urgent need for treatment. Everybody in Waikīkī, where I come from, who's a chronic offender is either suffering from severe mental illness, addiction, or antisocial criminal behavior. But all of them refuse treatment.

All of them refuse help. All of them refuse housing. And because of the ACLU successful advocacy back in 1975, you cannot force people to get treatment. You cannot force people to go to housing. You can't kidnap people and put them in housing. That's the heart of the problem. That's the problem. I'm telling you. That's the problem.

You guys have to come up with a way to tilt the scales a little bit, for those people who are severely mentally ill, to get forced treatment, against what the ACLU fought for. They fought successfully to make sure that people are not forcefully given help, and they consider that to be imprisonment, just like sending them to prison.

Please address the Committee. Thank you.

And also, we keep talking about bail reform, which did get vetoed. Bail reform is already in place in the Hawaii Constitution. Every judge has the discretion to allow people to be released, on their own recognizance, if the judge believes—reasonably believes—that they will return for their court appearance.

The problem is that judges routinely release many people who never have any reappearance. They have a horrible history of coming to court, but they release them anyway. So, that's pretty compassionate right there. They're ignoring the guidance in the Constitution.

And my research in Waikīkī shows that 73% of the people who are released on their own recognizance do not come to court. And about 30% of those people are never rearrested on a warrant, so, they get away with the crime they committed. One other statistic, 2023 HPD arrested close to 6,000 people for failure to appear in court, Contempt of Court.

That's a criminal charge, carries a 30-day possible sentence. Not one of those 6,000 people—not one—served one day in jail because of their Contempt of Court. That's a pretty compassionate system. So, we do have criminal justice reform already in place.

Based on everything I've seen, there are a certain percentage of people, about 1% in most communities, that are incorrigible, unfixable, can't be rehabilitated, and those people need to be behind bars for the safety of the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Deutzman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Eaton. And thank you for being here, Mr. Deutzman, for all of our testifiers to be here. Ms. Eaton.

Good morning, Committee. Committee Chair, Committee Vice Chair, and Members of the Committee. My name is Carolyn Eaton, I live in Makiki, and I've just gone to put more money in my car, and I am here because this Bill is the one, of all the bills you will look at this session, that I care about the most.

And the reasons have been stated and that's all I have to say.

Thank you. Ms. Shirota.

Carrie Ann Shirota, Policy Director, ACLU Hawaii. We strongly support HB 2063, which causes—calls for—a moratorium or pause for three years on the issuance, and I want to clarify "issuance" of ARFP, which we heard on the informational briefing, is the proposed—is one of the next steps, for a number of reasons.

One, just the top line, we cannot afford to spend $1 billion, whether it's now or later, or to invest in our diversion infrastructure. We have to make a choice. It's true that the Legislature has passed some pretrial reforms over the years, but the question becomes—is it being implemented? There was a pretrial task force with 20 plus recommendations.

I would love to see lawmakers asking the Judiciary and having an informational briefing—of those X number of pretrial fairness reforms, how many have been implemented? Why? Why not? The state Legislature passed a Bill in 2019 to allow judges discretion to impose non-monetary bail. The option. No judge has used that tool. None.

But beyond the Judiciary, again, we need to talk about the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. I do want to clarify that the proposed plan that we heard about on Monday, from DAGS, is the same plan we heard about 15 years ago, when I was at community meetings at Aloha Stadium. The plans have not changed.

It is still to build a jail for 1,044 persons and 233 prerelease beds. Why would we want to give that money to the Department, when we could invest those pretrial—or prerelease beds—to community providers?

YWCA, Going Home Hawaii, Hawaii Island, MEO, give—if you're going to invest in reentry and transition planning, give it to individuals, organizations, that have a track record of success. And if you look at YWCA, in particular, I want to highlight them.

There is no comparison to see the success rate of the women who are coming up, because it's a different philosophy of reintegration. So, if we have X number of dollars, why would we not invest in that—better outcomes—versus a jail?

Location. Location of Halawa is not ideal for reintegration. If you look at best practices, you would want to have a jail, while people are exiting and transitioning back into the community, close to transportation, close to if they need to go to the court, the hospital, medical care, housing, treatment providers.

Which is why Maui—Economic Opportunity in Maui—was so successful, because MEO runs a number of programs, so we could tap into other nonprofit programs and provide the holistic support people need. P3s—Public, Private, Partnership in the financial costs. This is a very risky venture.

On Monday, we heard that if the state decides to proceed with this, that only 30% to 60% of the design will be from the state, and that the developer has the opportunity to potentially design the rest.

If you look at some of the P3s that have been done in other states, for jails or prisons, several things have happened, far over the cost, over the life, over the 30 year, because it is a mortgage, and we will pay.

And not only will we pay, but the next generation, including my son and nieces and nephews, will pay for it. The other part of the P3 that we don't hear about is that based upon the process, there is an ability to have far more secrecy. Lack of transparency.

In Alabama, where they pursued the P3, lawmakers did not have access to a number of information that they felt was critical to make informed decisions on behalf of their constituents, and they were not allowed that information, because it was considered private information under P3. This would be the largest project in the State of Hawaii.

And I ask any of you here, what examples have we had of the State of Hawaii having a successful P3 for a project of this magnitude? We have not. Do we want to gamble with this P3?

I also want to highlight...

Wrap up please.

...that there are a number of state officials, over the years, who have been or have been lobbyists for CoreCivic, which is the private prison operator that runs Saguaro. We need to do a deeper dive, as to funding and connections, and why is there a push for P3, when there should be more communication with the community.

DCR was up at Tennessee at a trade organization, and that needs to come to light. This is our community. Please pass this measure. Chair, I know that you're not inclined to do so, but let the community weigh in.

If you're going to build something, build a diversion center. If you're going to build something, enhance reintegration programs in the community, but please don't pass.

Thank you for your testimony. Any other testifiers in the room? Okay. Members, questions? Go ahead. Representative Shimizu. Representative Shimizu.

Thank, thank you, Chair. You know, I want to appreciate the advocates for your heart and the work that you're doing, and I acknowledge that. I think it's plain, to even DCR, that we're trying to transition from a punitive model to a rehabilitative model, and we need to have a comprehensive analysis of the system.

The way I see it is...

Are you asking a question?

Yeah, I'm getting to that. There's two different things. There's rehab and there's putting a new facility, because even from the advocates, it's being clearly stated that OCCC can't be renovated. We need a new facility.

What I heard in the informational briefing was that there is flexibility for the design to incorporate different uses of the facility, and not just totally dedicated to a jail quote. So, Director, sorry for the long, um, getting to that.

But Director, do you agree that, based on the informational briefing, some of the work of the UHCDC, that this new facility can incorporate the things that advocates are promoting, as far as diversion and alternate use in the facility and in the operation? Is that doable, so that we can do, do the design and the overall analysis, concurrently?

We don't have to choose between one or the other.

Yes, that's what the Community Transition Center is for. That's so that we can do the diversion when they come back, instead of sending them back to a hard bed that costs $307 a day, get them reassessed, address the issue, and get them back out in the community.

And then the way we design the facility would be that it could be multi-use space, and we could then, as the population changes, ebbs and flows, we can use those spaces for different things. I would like to clarify a point of a previous testifier though.

When DAGS indicated that we would provide 30% to 40% of the design of the facility, it's not that—it's so that the developer knows exactly what we're looking for. It's not for the developer to build or design the facility that they want for us; it's for us to give them an idea of what we're looking for, and can you do it to this scale with these specs?

Understanding that there'll be blocks, program space moved around, to get what we want, on the land that we have.

Yes, I agree that, that point. As far as the percentage of flexibility for the P3 developer—the P3 developer still has to abide by the specs that are given to them, for the outcomes that we want, and we can incorporate those requirements of advocates in those specs, for the P3 developer to incorporate.

That is correct. We intend to put in the specs for natural light, for murals, for Hawaiian plants, for peaceful-type settings within the facility. So, a lot of the recommendations of the UHCDC will go into the design, not just this facility, any facility in the future.

Okay, thank, thank you.

Representative Iwamoto.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Since you're here, Director Johnson, I think you mentioned the fear of a consent—DOJ consent decree. Given President Trump's—President Trump obviously oversees the Department of Justice to a certain extent—and so given his rhetoric around on civil rights issues, because that's often where the consent decree comes in, it's triggered by violations of people's civil rights.

Do you really believe that's an accurate fear, in the next four years, that we would be subjected to a DOJ investigation? As if the Trump Administration cares about people who are...

I'm going to, I'm going to restrict that question because it's imputing intent to actually a government agency, and you're asking Director to speculate on something that we can all make our own opinions about. So, I don't know that that's an appropriate question.

Okay. Thank you. My next question is for Kat Brady of Community Alliance and Prisons. Thank you, Director Johnson.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is there any other questions from any other Members? All right, seeing none. Then, go ahead.

Okay, thank you, Chair. I appreciate it.

So, Ms. Brady, you heard that Director Johnson list off a number of community meetings, including neighborhood board meetings that they've attended. What was missing from that list that you..?

Answers. People were—there were even people from the Department at the UH Design center meetings who could not answer questions. And that is what the community has been asking for. And OCCC houses people from all communities on Oahu, so, to just be meeting with people in Aiea, and then saying, we've had extensive community input—no, they haven't.

It's been with the community of Aiea, and we have questions, we have our loved ones inside there, and we want to know certain things, and we need answers.

But this is specifically about the design of the, of a future rebuild, right, so, in terms of—you're saying there are specific communities that the Department should solicit input from, like...

I'm saying, we know the most impacted communities on Oʻahu: Waiʻanae, Waipahu, Kāneʻohe, and downtown.

Okay, can I—follow up question? Ms. Brady, I really respect you, I really do, but when you say that, in your testimony, that real information, not public relations, would you say that the UHDCC effort was just public relations?

No, that was real. We're talking about the public relations video that was on KITV.

So, if DCR was the group that contracted UHDCC, and UHDCC did not just go to Aiea, they engaged lots of community...

They also couldn't answer questions.

But UHDC was tasked with gathering input. So, that's what they did. And we are now at the point, right?

We now have the report, and we can take that input and insert it into the planning process, that's going to have to occur anyway, over the next three years, for the creation of a replacement. And in that three-year period, there's going to be more community engagement. So, to simply say that...

I, I hope so.

Okay, so if that is the process that is laid before us, because that is government process, as it was described to us by Department of Accounting and General Services, would you like us to delay that process?

Would you like us to delay the process that comes with community engagement, as we move forward with the planning of a new replacement facility?

I would like the community's questions to be answered by the Department who can answer the questions.

Okay, so you want—and we can work on that in the next three years. Isn't that—is that a possibility? Is that a potential that you can conceive?

I hope so.

Okay, I hope so too, because that is what this process is. This is the engagement process, and it includes engagement by the Legislature, as well. All right. Members, any other further questions? All right, we are going to move on to House Bill 1376.

This would require the state to phase out use of private correctional facilities to incarcerate Hawaii inmates, prohibits construction of a new correctional facilities or expansion of existing correctional facilities. So a complete moratorium on all building and even repair and maintenance facilities. Let's go. We have testimony with comments from Attorney General.

Good morning, Chair Bellotti, Vice Chair Iwamoto, and members of the committee. My name is Lisi Tamura. I'm a Deputy Attorney General. We do offer comments on this bill. Just briefly to summarize, a part three of the bill, we think, may be challenged as either a violation of Article 5, Section 6 of the Hawaii Constitution by giving a board or commission, which is not fully staffed or appointed by the governor, power over an executive agency.

That also may trigger a separation of powers violation, again, by giving a commission that is not part of the Executive Branch power over an executive agency. That's all. You're on. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments. I'll be available for questions.

Thank you very much. We have testimony in opposition from Corrections and Rehabilitation. Director Johnson.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. I'm Tommy Johnson, Director of DCR. I have five pages of testimony, so I will just summarize each section, if you will. We also support the AG's position in this matter. It may violate the Constitution, but I think it also may violate the powers inherent to the director pursuant to the HRS statutes on the appointment of the director.

Second, I think that this bill goes far beyond what the legislative intent was for the commission, the Oversight Commission, to provide recommendations not to be operationally responsible for any decisions made with respect to operations of the DCR or the maintaining or building of its facilities.

In addition, I would like to state that the judiciary currently has about 14,000 people on probation. Of that, 900 plus thousand are sentenced felony probations. If less than 10%, about 10% of them will be sentenced to prison, that's 900 offenders. That would overwhelm our prison system.