Restrictive Housing Legislative Working Group

Good morning everyone. Happy Aloha. Thursday Today is Thursday, August 21, 2025. It is. This is our 9:00am Restrictive Housing Legislative Working Group. We are broadcasting live here and for those watching on YouTube, we are in Conference Room 225 at the Hawaii State Capitol. Just a few housekeeping announcements.

I'm gonna just have briefly read over the agenda here and also go over some announcements and then I'll turn it over to my co chair and then we'll do introductions and we'll go through the agenda. For all testifiers, there will be a time limit on it.

For those on zoom, the time limit for each testifier will be one minute and the content including the hearing notice can be found the Legislature's website.

So I'm going to read through the agenda the Act 292 restrictive housing legislative Working Group was established by the Legislature and enacted into law by Governor Joshua Green Josh Green on July 32025 to develop and recommend more comprehensive laws, policies and procedures regarding restrictive housing for Members of vulnerable population.

The Act 292 Working Group is tasked with reviewing, considering and identifying laws, policies and procedures regarding restrictive housing for Members of vulnerable populations, including committed persons who are a are 60 years of age or elder b Have a physical or mental disability any history of psychiatric hospitalization or recently exhibited conduct, including serious self mutilation, that indicates the need for further observation or evaluation to determine the presence of mental illness C. Have a developmental disability as defined in HRS section 333F1 subsection D have a serious mental condition that cannot be effectively treated while the committed person is in restrictive housing subsection E have a significant auditory or visual visual impairment or F Is perceived to be Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex.

Act 292 Session Laws of 2025 directs the working Group to submit its recommendation to the Legislature by January 2020 January 82027 and I'll note that we had to start and commence after August 1st of this year and I just want to acknowledge Co Chair Bolotti for your work and efforts and Members of the House and my colleagues on the Senate and to Governor Green and his team for signing this into law and all the advocates for getting us to this point in time.

So I'll do with that. We'll do brief introductions. We'll go around the room of our working group. There are Members of the public that are here that are sitting in and also watching online. So I'm Brandon Elefante and I chair the Committee on Public Safety and Military affairs in the Senate.

Good morning all. Thank you for being here. My name is Della Belatti and I'm Chair of the Hawaii House Committee on Public Safety.

Good morning everyone. Representative Garner Shimizu, District 32. I am also a Member of the Public safety. Thank you.

Dr. Kevin Camisado, Department of Health, Adult and Mental Health Division, clinical psychologist.

Good morning. Michael Hoffman, I'm with DCR Division Administrator.

Karl Rhoads, Senator from the District, you're. Sitting in District 13 and Chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Good morning. Sergio Alquibelia on behalf of the ACLU of Hawaii. And our Executive Director is Helma Risby.

Mark Patterson, Chair of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

Kat Brady, Coordinator of Community Alliance on Prisons. Good morning everyone.

Good morning. Tuli Sofia, on behalf of UPW and State Director Kalani Werner.

Thank you. And then online, good morning.

Kim Coco Iwamoto, Vice Chair of the. House Committee on Public Safety.

Okay, and I know we do have Mr. Hoffman here from DCR, I believe is Director Johnson. Are you available on Zoom? Okay, with that I'll defer to my co chair to do the other introductions for voting and non voting Members on this Committee.

Thank you, Chair. So we went through the personal introductions but just wanted to kind of review the membership structure of this Committee. So in Act 292 we have individuals from the very important stakeholder groups who need to oversee the task of this group. And so from the Legislature we have myself and Chair Elefante as non voting Members.

Invited by the chairs have been Representatives Kim Koko Iwamoto and Representative Garner Shimizu and Senator Carlo. So we thank them for joining this group because they were not specifically named. Other voting Members of this working group include Daniel DCCR Director Tommy Johnson. And we want to thank Mr. Hoffman for being here.

As his designee we have from the Governor's office Michael Champion who is a senior advisor of Mental Health and Justice System who is not present but has been invited and is accepted this invitation and will be deeply involved in the work that we're doing together. Commissioner Mark Patterson from the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

We have invited also representative from Office of Hawaiian Affairs or Trustee Chair Kaikahele. We do have a Member of Office of Hawaiian Affairs sitting here in the audience, but we will wait to get the formal notification. Finally we have Salma Rizvi, the Executive Director from American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

And we thank Sergio for being here so serving on her behalf. And Kat Brady from Community alliance on Prisons. I believe that covers all of the voting Members in addition we have non voting Members from UPW, United Public Workers, Kalani Werner and Mr. Fia as his representative today.

We want to thank Department of Health for also being here. Dr. Kevin Kamisato who is here on behalf of Director Kenny Fink. I believe that covers all of our non voting Members at this time. Chair, so I'll turn it over back to you.

Thank you. And I just want to acknowledge Sean Aronson from Rep. Tarnas office from the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. Thank you for being present. So with that, thank you Co chair. You know, really appreciate your hard work on this. And the working group, we're going to go right into it.

So we're going to move on to. Is there anyone else that we missed before we continue that is online for introductions? Okay, I think we got that covered. So we do have a quorum. Quorum, my understanding would have to be of the voting Members, which is eight, so that would be six. So quorum is established.

We'll go on to the proposed calendar. And I know Co Chair Baladi, you had the thought of having several meetings before our deadline of January 82027. So if it's okay with the group here, the thought would be to have our next meeting which would kind of dive more into the details on October 162025.

And we're going to move the time to a little later at 9:30am if that works for everyone. And then going forward, we'll see how that meeting will shape up and we'll decide if another meeting is warranted.

And I think in you and I and what we discuss is as we get into session, we get a little busy and so it'd be a lot difficult to meet then. And then we'll regroup post session of 2026. So I'll leave that up. Co chair and Members, if you have any discussion on that.

Does that work for everyone?

We can contact the chairs with information. Yes. Yep.

Can I just add Chair as we've been looking at the act, the act really spells out some of the timelines and so that is what's driving our calendar. And October 16th happens to be the third Thursday.

So as we look forward, moving forward, if you folks can tentatively just hold a third Thursdays because that might be kind of a good marker. We may not use all of those those dates, but it just will help. The planning purposes for September.

We won't meet. So this would be the next proposed meeting. Okay. So if we could just pencil that in. Okay. There's no discussion. We'll move on to item Three, which is discussion about working group topics.

I know one idea that we shared was to have the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to present to us their current policies and procedures on restrictive housing, also solitary confinement, as one idea and Chair, I know you had an idea of bringing in a few guests and that. So the floor is open to any discussion.

So I'll start with you, Chair.

So, Members, you know, our goal is to, one, understand what is the status quo of restrictive housing policies. Currently, the bill has set into motion the expectation that certain policies will be implemented by, I believe, 2026, mid-2026, and then we're going to be making recommendations, obviously, for the 2027 legislative session.

So, again, one, we need to understand what is the status quo. And my thought, following up with having first a presentation by DCR to really understand what's happening, I would also like to hear from individuals in the system who have had experience with solitary confinement.

We know that the correctional facilities have been places of real challenge and that there have been serious events that have occurred that we need to confront. And that's what this working group is doing. And I think that's what the state is committed to do. We're not going to turn away.

And so one of my thoughts is that at some point during our work, we should have folks who have had experience, either the loss of loved ones or experienced solitary confinement to explain what some of the challenges have been.

So we will be looking, of course, to some individuals who, family Members, potentially inmates, who have experienced solitary confinement in the system so that we can understand the challenges and maybe what some of the potential solutions are. I will say there has been a lot of conversation. There has also been litigation and settlement around this issue.

So we need to look at that body of work as well to understand maybe what other experts have already determined our best practices. And so that would be the reason to reach out to groups other than ourselves on this Committee. And so that's what I had offered to Chair Elefante.

Yep. Any other ideas or topics from the Members? Okay. Is that something that's workable? Director Johnson, Are you online? If not, Mr. Hoffman, is that something that DCR can put together for our next meeting?

Okay, I am here. Can you hear me?

zero, yes, we can hear you. If you can just identify yourself, please.

I'm sorry. I'm Tommy Johnson, the Director of Dcr. I'm having problems with my camera, but I am here, so.

Okay, thank you.

Can I add one other thing to the discussion? Chair? I think as we move forward, we want to invite other topics from the working group Members.

So I know that this is sort of all thrown on you at the moment, but as we proceed through our work, these meetings will be the opportunity to identify what other topic areas we have to talk about and explore.

I would also urge working group Members to really look into the bill because there's very specific things like training, reporting that we're required to do.

And so if we need to gather information about that, those are those kinds of topics that we can surface through this working group and through Chair Elefante and myself and even through some of the Members, you will have resources to which we can bring to the working group and highlights.

I thought that this was about vulnerable populations. Yes, it is in restrictive housing. So now you're opening it up to. All sorts of things.

No, no, no. It's still in the context of restrictive housing. But I urge you to look into this bill and pull out, believe me. Yeah. And in this bill there's requirements, there's references to training so that we can have properly deal with those vulnerable populations and.

Thank you, co Chair. I think something just to think about if Members, if you have any ideas, but I believe we need to start from point A. Yes.

And where the Department is currently because ultimately this group have to come up with a recommendation to the Legislature basically by December of next year in time for January 82027. If there's anyone else have anything, can.

I just ask Members in the room to speak into a microphone, Pat? And then also when the co chairs make eye contact with the row in. The back, if you could bring your microphones with you. Okay. Sorry about that. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mr. Aquabila. Chair, if we can we schedule a visit to an actual in person visit as a working group.

Yes, I think that's something we could work with DCR and be open to that. Anything else? Okay. If not, then we'll move on to questions and comments from the public. We'll start off in zoom land it. Is there anyone online that wishes to comment or provide testimony? No, Chair. Okay, thank you, Robbie.

Anyone in the room that wishes to provide comment or testimony? Yes. If you can, please identify yourself and organization you're with.

Aloha, Makena Woodward with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Just wanted to thank Senator Elephante and Representative Belatti for convening this working group and looking forward to working with you all. Once I have the appropriate designation. Mahalo. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. And I believe we're just still waiting a transmittal letter from oha. Correct. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes.

Yeah, hi. Sean Aronson. I'm the legislative attorney for the Judiciary Hawaiian Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives under Chair Tarnas, who, you know, is very interested and concerned with these issues. I just wanted to throw it out there.

Maybe it's something that could come up in the next presentation from DCR about the potential or pending oversight, I believe that may have been mandated by the court, or there's some folks who are coming into DCR to help them look at this issue specifically.

So I just wanted to make sure that that specific topic got brought up about outside folks coming in to look at the System.

Thank you, Mr. Erson. So noted. Anyone else in the audience? Members questions? Yes, Representative Shimizu.

Thank you.

Chair, who's your question to? Is it any of the testifiers?

No, it's just. It's just a comment to the body.

Okay, working. Please proceed.

Thank you. You know, as I. I was reviewing SB104, it was confusing for me that it seemed to spell out certain requirements in Section two and in Section three. And some of the requirements that were spelled out seem to be conflicting each other.

And combined with what this working group is tasked with to establish new laws or policies or procedures, how does all that get reconciled? Do we. Does what this working group establish or decide upon supersede what's already in this act?

Okay, so what's important to note is the implementation date of Section two, which is. Which is July 12026. So there is this window of time in which we can do review of best practices and make some recommendations in addition, around the issue of smi, severe mental illness. I believe we were silent on that.

And that is probably the most difficult kind of vulnerable population that we need to understand and create better policies around. So the way this act is structured is to provide both a delayed implementation, an opportunity to make further recommendations, and either through policy which does not require legislative changes that the Department can Institute.

And so we have that room to do that, but then it also provides us the opportunity as the working group to make legislative recommendations.

And so this is a work in progress in some ways, but it is an important statement about what the state Legislature and in fact, the Governor wants to move towards to ensure that treatment in our facilities comports with constitutional standards and is actually moving towards rehabilitation.

Thank you, Chair. Understood.

Okay. Thank you, Rep. Shimizu. Thank you, Co Chair. And I want to acknowledge Dr. Michael Champion, who is a voting Member on this Committee. Thank you. Do you want to have any further introductions or remarks? Do you want to just speak into the mic?

Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Michael Champion, a psychiatrist. I serve as the senior advisor to Governor Green on mental health and justice. This is a very important issue and. I'm grateful to be part of this process. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, we'll move on to five next steps and announcements. Chair, do you have anything on this other than what we previously discussed?

No. I just want to by announcement or gratitude, thank our staff Members who really put this together. I know this seems like an efficient meeting, but there was actually quite a. Quite a bit of work that had to happen.

Both the signing of notices, the creation of a webpage that the Senate is hosting, as well as identification of Members and the invitation sent out. So it appears that we're just super efficient. But it takes a lot of work to look this efficient.

And I want to thank the Members of the House staff as well as the Senate staff. Both. Yeah.

Yes, and I concur. Thank you to you and Christine, Speaker Nakamura, and on the Senate side, President Kochi, Carol, Director Jones from sma, and my staff, Taylor, Amber and Jan for working with your staff to put this together.

So now I need to recognize Mr. Takeshita in our, in our House. Yes, your house Clerk. So you're gonna name everybody? I gotta name him?

Yes, and it as well. And sergeant in arms. So thank you everyone. Any other announcements? Okay, if not, we'll see everyone on October 162025 at 9:30. We'll put the notification online in advance and then give you a room number. I know this room is really small. Small space. We'll see if we can get a bigger room.

If not, then we'll just keep it here. But if there being no further business, comments or questions, we're adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you.