Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs

Happy Aloha Friday and Happy early Thanksgiving to everyone. Thank you for making time to be here. This is the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs. We just have a few housekeeping announcements before we begin. Welcome to our 9:30am Meeting. This is an informational briefing.

Today is November 21, 2025 and we are at the State Capitol and Conference Room 225. We welcome our Committee Members. Thank you, Senator Rhodes and Senator Fukunaga and I know Vice Chair Wakai will be joining us shortly. And thank you to all those for your participation this morning here in the room and those on Zoom.

There will be no public testimony on this informational briefing. The content, including the hearing notice can be found on the Legislator's website. The live video stream and archive of this hearing can be found on the Senate's YouTube channel. And for members of the public, I'm just going to read what's posted on our agenda.

The subject of this informational briefing is to examine clearance rates relating to violent crimes and understanding what resources are needed for law enforcement to understand the current status of clearance rates from state law enforcement and local county police departments to better understand what challenges are being faced and how agencies can work together by better understanding what resources are needed.

We'll begin first with a presentation from Director Marshall Clement. Thank you, Director Clement. I do see you on Zoom. Joining us from the Council of State Governments Justice Center. We also provided a link to statewide violent crime clearance rates that's posted on the agenda. And then after Director Clement, we'll open it up for questions from the Members.

And then we'll have a discussion and presentation from the following agencies. Our State Department of Law Enforcement. Thank you, Director Lambert and Deputy Director Radula. State Attorney General's Office. We do have someone here. Yes, thank you so much. I believe that is Michelle Pu. Yes, thank you.

And then we have our Honolulu Police Department, who is with us in the audience. The Hawaii County Police Department and Maui County Police Department and the Honolulu and Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. And thank you for all being with us. And I also like to welcome Representative Garner Shimizu. Thank you for being with us here today.

So with that, we'll turn it over now to Director Clement for your presentation.

Thank you so much. Senator. It's good to be with you and the Committee. Thank you for shining a light on on this topic.

We had a chance to to talk about it several weeks ago at a conference and it's wonderful to see you bringing together all the different agencies who are experts in these issues and know exactly what kind of resources are needed to make improvement on this critical topic of solving violent crime.

I'll try be very brief with my remarks so that we can get into the discussion and hopefully my screen is coming through okay for everyone.

Yes, we can see it. Thank you.

All right, so this topic of solving violent crime is a critical one that we're seeing leaders face across the country, and it's been one that's been growing for some time.

We want to talk quickly about why solving violent crime matters so much now more than ever, I would argue, what does Hawaii's data that we have access to that gets reported from the state tell us? And obviously that data is always incomplete.

And so I'm thrilled that you have folks in the room that can flesh out what the data that we see reported may not tell us. And then finally, what can state leaders do? And I think that's the critical point.

I think too often we've thought of solving violent crime or the role of investigations simply as a function of local law enforcement, when really it takes a whole functioning, well resourced system that state leaders are keeping track of, setting goals for resourcing in order to have the impacts and the justice that we're looking after so quickly.

Why does solving violent crime matter? The big picture is that over the last 60 years in the US we've seen the rate at which we solve certain violent crimes just continue to go down downward every year.

We have not yet seen a real reversal in these rates for the past 60 years, primarily for murder, rape, and aggravated assault. These rates have been falling for decades. And there's lots of reasons and studies that looked at why this is the case. We certainly have are making better arrests than ever.

We have more evidence to make sure that the arrests that we're making today are more likely to be the individual who committed the crime. But there's still no getting around the fact that we have fewer people being arrested when a serious violent crime occurs today than ever before, since we started collecting data in the 1960s.

This matters for obvious reasons, but I think it's worth just underscoring why solving less violent crime, what it can lead to, it leads to less safety for victims and communities. It increases the risk of retaliatory violence, people taking justice into their own hands.

That means less justice for the victims and their family members who have been harmed by these violent crimes. It means less deterrence, punishment, rehabilitation from our criminal justice system as a whole.

Our whole criminal justice system depends on first identifying people who committed serious crimes in order to then determine their guilt and design responses to hold them accountable, punish them or deter. But all of those punishments, all of those responses can't happen unless we first solve more violent crime.

And it can leave people feeling who are committing violence to feel emboldened and free to commit further violence, leaving them with a sense that the likelihood they'll be caught is they commit another violent crime is very low.

And all of this contributes to a growing concern I know we all have in terms of trust in government, trust in our justice system's ability to be there to protect and respond, particularly when serious violent crime occurs.

We know from recent research that if the public perceives or understands that less violent crime is being solved, they're less willing to aid investigations, which then makes the solvability for these cases all the more challenging for law enforcement and leads us into a downward cycle of less willingness to cooperate, less actual solve rates or clearance rates, less cases and more violence.

Critical issue to tackle for the following reasons and more. I think the reason why it's important to tackle it now is we have a lot of research over the last five to 10 years that tells us the key things that can help law enforcement solve more violent crime.

For decades we were working off a premise that more resources wouldn't necessarily matter in investigations, but we have a lot of evidence in the last decade or so that in fact it does. Adequate number of detectives to reduce caseloads for for those investigating serious violent crime matters.

Our capacity to process digital evidence, not just the tools and technology, but the people to then make use of those tools and technology, the build cases matters, the training that we provide those carrying out investigations matters. And the other things here listed.

A lot of what we know, a lot more about what we can do to increase solve rates than ever before. And we've seen cities adopt those kinds of practices and actually boost their solve rates for serious violent crimes pretty dramatically and pretty quickly. This is all good, good news.

In particular, Denver set up a special unit to devote the same amount of resources that they were devoting to homicide investigations to non fatal shootings. And they saw the solve rate go from 39% to to 65% within seven months. So resources matter, training matters, technology matters.

But all too often those pieces aren't necessarily coming together to the degree they can and should so quickly. What do we know from the data reported by agencies in Hawaii? We only have data from Oahu and Kauai in this data set. We don't have data from Maui and the Big Island.

And so this is a limited picture, but obviously captures still a significant portion of your overall state's population. Good news is, you know, Hawaii has a much lower violent crime rate and always has than the national average and more or less.

When you look at overall rates of violent crime, the four crimes we track, you see that being pretty flat over this time period, a slight increase during the pandemic, and then coming down in the last two years that we have full data for 2023 and 2020.

When we look at the solve rate, what share of those crimes, or rather relative to the crimes reported in that year, how many crimes did law enforcement report were solved? That means that they either made an arrest or they identified the individual and they were deceased or the case was not able to proceed.

We can talk more into the details of that, but more often than not, we're talking about an arrest being made in a case.

Over the Last decade, from 2014 to 2024, you've seen your overall violent crime solve rate go from about 52% where it was slightly above the national average at the time, to 40% where it's slightly below the national average during this time. That 40% is up from 30% in 2019.

So there's been some upward trajectory in your solve rate, which is good to see, but still below the national average and well below where we were many decades ago. It's worth then breaking that solve rate out by the four types of violent crime that we track. The solve rate for homicide is that top line.

You can see highly variable. Some years you're solving 91% of homicides. That means just the number of cases solved in that year is 91% of the cases reported in that year. They're not exactly the same cases because obviously investigations take time. But that's the way we track these rates.

You could see that for aggravated assault, the red line there, that's been going down pretty steadily over that 10 year period. And rates also falling somewhat for rape and robbery. So as of 2024 data, 50% of homicides, 48% of aggravated assaults, 26% of rapes, and 26% of robberies, those were your solve rates for 2024.

But obviously it's not just this year's rate, it's past year's rate. Altogether, those combined to make the number of cases that remain unsolved over the past three years. Based on the data from the from the two islands reporting, the estimate is about 17 homicides remain unsolved over the past three years.

3300 aggravated assault cases reported to police remaining unsolved, about 1200 rapes and 1700 robberies. And those are of the cases reported to law enforcement. Obviously, there are many cases in which citizens may not report crimes to law enforcement. We show the breakout in the solve rate from between Honolulu and Kauai at the bottom there.

Again, this is data reported from from your state through nibrs to the FBI. Solve rate being 36% in 2024 for Honolulu and 49% in Kwai. So quickly to sum up, what can state leaders do about some of these these data?

Solving violent crime is a critical challenge for state leaders because it takes a system to respond to these issues and because the impacts are so widespread for your justice system. If we want to break cycles of violence, unsolved crime will otherwise fuel harm, retaliation and trauma.

But solving these cases can help at least bring the justice system to bear in disrupting those patterns. If we want to deter future crime, we know that accountability is critical to deterring behavior and that if we impose punishment, we state punishments, but we actually have no enforcement, then we are not going to change or deter behavior.

And finally, it's about building community trust in terms of solving these cases. So four things we see states doing around the country in response to some of these data that are starting to take action on these issues. One is exactly what you're doing today.

Bringing leaders together, looking at the data, understanding what the challenges are for law enforcement, prosecutors and the rest of the system and setting a goal for how can your state improve solve rates and support the system in achieving that.

The second is figuring out ways you can improve data collection and reporting so you have better understanding of these solve rates for your whole, whole state and how do you track that and keep that as a key, key metric you want to be looking at where, what's going to be needed in terms of state support for investigations.

How are you handling the technology needs, the crime labs, the, the forensics. That is critical obviously now more than ever to help aid investigations. And then finally, and certainly critical to this is how you're supporting people who witness and experience violent crime that are critical to these investigations as well.

So that I'll pause, happy to answer any questions, but really eager to hear the discussion of the leaders you've brought together, Senator, and hear how Hawaii can, can work on this critical issue.

Thank you so much Director Clement. And I'd also like to welcome Vice Chair Senator Wakai for joining us this morning. Thank you. With that Members questions for Director Clement? Senator Rhodes, thanks.

Thanks for making taking the time to make the presentation to us. I really appreciate it. That last slide, the support for victims, and now it's off the screen, so I can't tell. But can you tell us what that support looks like?

Were you talking about the fees that we give people to come in to testify or what all are you talking about?

Yeah, it could be a range of things. And obviously I think the question is really best put to folks in, excuse me, in Hawaii for what the needs are.

We just know it's a critical piece of an overall strategy that states need to be thinking about that unless you're really making sure that your victim witness protection programs, your coordinators to engage victims and witnesses and support them through this process, especially if trust is low, given low solve rates, maybe in that community or for that type of crime, there's a lot of trust to be built and support can go a long ways in terms of aiding in encouraging that person to stay a part of the process and support their needs.

While you're doing that.

Senator Fukunaga.

I guess as a follow up to some of the statistics you presented, it seems as though on one hand our rate of resources available for law enforcement has kind of fluctuated and it has actually come down a little bit in recent years and it's kind of on the upswing again.

However, in the area of staffing, it seems as though we have seen sustain some major challenges. You know, the listing that you have on your website talks about how the number of officers per 1,000 violent crimes in Hawaii has decreased by 55% from 2013 to 2023.

And I'm curious to see what other jurisdictions have done to tackle shortages in workforce because, you know, more than anything else, I think that's kind of, of a startling statistic for us to confront as we're looking at, you know, the increased resources that have been devoted to law enforcement recently.

Yeah, it's a great question, Senator. I think the, and I deferred to the two leaders in the room on the exact resource challenges. I think one thing to note is we're looking at in these data on the website, overall law enforcement expenditures, overall number of officers, and we talk about investigations and solving land crime.

Obviously patrol and lots of parts of a law enforcement agency come into play. But the actual number of people really focused on investigations is, tends to be a smaller percentage of your overall staffing. And so the real question I think is, is how are, how are caseloads looking?

How are the number staffing for investigators, detectives looking in terms of each of your agencies and how are those resources really looking over time and in terms of current staffing, those are really the more nuanced, more focused questions that are going to be most pertinent, I think, to the question of how well resourced you are to solve violent crime.

Okay, thank you. Can you provide a little bit more background on your example of the Denver statistic that you provided earlier?

Yeah. So for each of those three cities, and I didn't go into as much detail about each of them, Boston, Denver and Omaha were three that have been looked at by researchers and examined how they were able to improve solve rates for violent crimes. Each took very different approaches.

In Boston, they kind of took a holistic approach in terms of thinking about hiring some additional staff to aid investigations. They improved training for all of their detectives. They developed checklists for what they were going to make sure they did in every single investigation.

For homicides or non fatal shootings, for example, they collected rigorous data and set metrics about data collection, number of victims, spoken to, et cetera. And they used that and really had leadership set a goal of really focusing on improving those metrics and using that to improve their solve rate as much as they did in Denver.

The fascinating kind of, I think the illustrative example here is that they recognize that their solve rate for non fatal shootings and homicides was so different, even though the behavior that they were responding to was very similar in terms of gun violence.

Whether someone died or did not or just was injured as a result of that shooting should not determine the likelihood that the individual responsible is arrested and held accountable.

By devoting the same amount of resources to those non fatal shootings, they were able to see a dramatic improvement in the solve rate, which kind of reinforces the General idea here that resources matter in terms of these investigations. And when we increase the resources available to solve these cases, we do see higher solve rates.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Wakai.

Thanks. I wanted to just focus on the violent solve rate. You had a statistic up there that showed that the Kauai did far better than Oahu. Obviously, Kauai is probably like 1/10 the population of Oahu. And Kauai solved 49% versus Oahu or HPD solving 36%. I was at a recent kind of workforce development conference.

They touched on police forces across America and kind of indicated that smaller police forces did better, better at retention, better at solving crimes because you get these big hpd, LAPD, NYPD is just too big of a monster, so to speak, to try to just organize the Department.

Is there value in looking at perhaps on Oahu for HPD somehow breaking up the organization a little bit so that we can reflect more of what the mainland sees with a smaller police force having better retention and solving more crimes?

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think there's lots of factors going on into why we see not just Hawaii, but in Washington State, where I'm based, for example, solve rates higher in less densely populated areas.

I don't think it's such a factor of the organizational size or structure of the law enforcement agencies so much as a variety of other factors.

And the fact that we've seen even large cities, Denver, Boston, Omaha improve their solve rates significantly through taking some of the fairly relatively low cost, relatively not big structural changes in terms of how they respond to these types of crimes and make big improvements suggest that there's a lot we can do within the existing kind of structure in these jurisdictions where we see solve rates are so low.

So I don't have any research or about how changing size or structure of law enforcement agencies might impact these rates. What we do have evidence on suggests there's lots we can do on these other, other fronts.

I know much of your presentation this morning focused on violent and physical harm to other people, but can we, can you touch a little bit on cyber crimes and what other jurisdictions are doing to invest in people who are are good at just technology and solving crimes through a computer rather than walking down a sidewalk?

It's a great question, Senator. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert in cybercrime. I know a lot of states are developing statewide task forces and making investments in trying to provide more support to victims and to coordinate with banks around those types of crimes. Obviously, huge challenges on that front, but outside of my domain of expertise, I'm sorry. Okay, no problem.

Thank you, Members, any further questions? I do have a few questions for you, Director Clement. The first one is do you feel like in the last. I know you had some statistics on a national level and currently in Hawaii, but overall in the last decade, has violent crime gone down or increase in comparison to locally in Hawaii?

So, yeah, your stats again, just for those two jurisdictions. You know, in Hawaii as well as nationally, we see violent crime rates much lower today than they were 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Most places now, after this historic drop in particularly homicides, drop in aggravated assaults, continued drop in robberies in particular, are seeing lower violent crime rates today. That was not true, you know, three years ago when we saw the spike in violent crime during the pandemic.

But in most jurisdictions We've seen drops, with a few exceptions, down to lower levels. In Hawaii. You see 2024 continuing that decline from 2023 in 2022. So overall violent crime is down. That should, that means fewer cases to work on and solve.

And so all the more reason why we should be seeing and expecting to see solve rates continue to start going back up as opposed to continue going down.

Okay, thank you for that. And then the other question I have is I know when we, you get data for clearance slash solve rates, you have it. Police makes a report, law enforcement makes a report. But sometimes it can also be that the prosecution or Attorney General's Office doesn't necessarily take, take up the case in that sense.

So in your data and research, do you get into the weeds of all that and how cases are brought forward and if it's taken up by the prosecution or not?

Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. It's exactly the kind of data you ideally want to be looking at. Unfortunately, it's not data that's available in most states or certainly nationally to understand.

For example, for homicides, how many were reported, how many were resulted in an arrest, how many then resulted in prosecution, how many resulted in what type of sentence resulting from prosecution. You obviously want to see that whole funnel, that whole chain of events. We can look at homicides, arrests and admissions to prison.

We see a significant drop off. That drop off between arrests and prison admissions for homicide has been shrinking, meaning that more of the cases were actually resulting in arrest, are actually landing with a prison sentence, for example, for a crime like homicide than in the past.

That suggests we're, we're being focusing on cases that have a higher likelihood of securing a conviction over the last 20 or 30 years. But that's data exactly. You would want to ideally be able to look at for your particularly your serious and violent crimes.

How many of those arrests are resulting in prosecution and look at that over time and want to try to see obviously that percentage improve and just a.

Quick follow up to that clearance and solve can also mean cases that get dismissed too. Right. That would qualify under sort of being cleared or resolved.

Correct. And I don't have this data for Hawaii. We can certainly get it or folks can speak to it. There is in addition to arrest for an individual, there is something called an exceptional clearance that is considered part of these solve rates or clearance rates and that can include a variety of things.

The victim was not willing to cooperate, prosecution was not willing to move forward with the case. The individual identified as being responsible to be charged was deceased. So there are a number, a handful of exceptional clearance reasons that law enforcement may report as part of their clearance rate.

And again, folks in the room familiar with those stats can maybe speak to what share of if any of their solve rates or clearance rates are in those categories as opposed to an arrest.

Great. Thank you Members. Any further follow up questions for Director Clement at this time? If not, thank you so much and you're welcome to stay on if you want to hear the rest of the presenters come up or in case there might be some follow up questions.

But if you have to go, we do understand that and we do appreciate your time.

Thank you, Senrell. I'll definitely listen in. I'd be honored to.

Great. Thank you so much. Okay with that as we call upon the departments for the departments. If, when you do come up, if you have any comments or feedback based on Director Clements presentation or anything to add that would be helpful for the Committee and the public.

So we'll begin first with the State Department of Law Enforcement, Director Mike Lambert and Deputy Director Jared Ridola. Good morning.

Good morning. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. So first off with the comments. Yeah, I agree with all the bullet points, the overall bullet points in regards to the impact of solve rates on community trust and how it kind of creates that cycle. Right.

In other words, if I call and it's unlikely to be solved, then I'm unlikely to keep calling. So I do acknowledge that point. So I don't disagree with anything that was shared within the presentation.

And then as far as that goes, so what we'll do is we'll give our report and then I guess we can open up to any other questions.

Good morning. I'm Jared Ridola, the Deputy Director. I'm going to address our data and what our data, the picture that our data paints. Consistent with the presentation we saw this morning, the DLE's clearance rates are very similar and I think also consistent with the General Hawaii communities clearance rate, our data also suggests that it's very similar.

You know, for example, in our system we only had two murders and those were cleared by arrest. And so, you know, that being said, it's not reflective of the larger community numbers that the community county police departments would have because we have such a limited area of enforcement. Which brings us to the other point of our data.

So we have a different population that we serve. Whereas the county police departments would service the county and the community at large, our enforcement population is typically the prisons, the airports and the harbors where essentially It's a captive audience. So there, for example, we are dealing with prison inmates and violent crimes occurring in the prison.

And with the dynamics that occur in the prison population, we might be able to arrest someone. But to carry those cases through to a successful prosecution is wholly a different dynamic. Typically, we heard our presenter say this morning, there is another factor in solve rates which includes things like cleared by exceptional means.

And in many of the cases that we handle, we know who is involved. But being able to bring that case to the prosecutor for a successful prosecution is different.

Typically in the prison setting, for example, someone initially might complain and start a prosecution or an investigation, but then down the road they decide, I'm going to withdraw my complaint or become uncooperative.

And so these are very frequent dynamics that we see in our cases that aren't generally or may not be as distinct or as frequent as what the community, the county police departments would see. So we do have similar data. Our the number of cases that we have going to be lower.

For example, the total number of felonies that our detectives handled since the start of the DLD is about 700 cases. Now, typically speaking, I only have 15 detectives. And so those detectives caseloads, you know, it's about 50 cases that they've had to handle, but it's a smaller number because of the limited population that we actually service.

The other issue that we've been working with in terms of our data is that as the Committee well knows, we're a brand new agency because we are a brand new agency that conglomerated many different law enforcement agencies together. When we came together, we dealt with different kinds of reporting and records management.

In our growth, we've had to create a brand new, more modernized record management system. And in doing so, we've got a new record management system, a very modern one, and we're able to now collect data and now report that data more effectively. Any questions?

Okay, Members, questions for DLE? Okay. If not, thank you, State Attorney General's Office. And after State Attorney General's Office, we'll go to the Honolulu Police Department. Good morning.

Good morning. I wasn't told I would be speaking to you folks today, so I'm just gonna fly by the seat of my pants here. As a prosecutor, there are a lot of issues relating to closure.

I would think of cases that I can see one personnel needs to be increased in a lot of areas, law enforcement, we don't have enough detectives, we don't have enough patrol officers to support those detectives. We don't have enough crime scene Analysts, we don't have enough lab analysts. That means the DNA analysts.

We don't have enough drug analysts. We don't have enough lab equipment. Our lab equipment is not sophisticated enough to detect all sorts of drug analyses. Our labs are incapable of testing alcohol in certain samples.

Very basic things that we are incapable of doing right now in our existing laboratories, we have to actually privately contract those services out because our state labs, our county labs, are incapable of doing those things. And it's just a lack of resources.

So when we say resources matter, we mean people and stuff are lacking in terms of detectives themselves.

I know from both working with the Honolulu Police Department, we prosecute statewide, so we see it on all facets for all the departments with hpd, we see our detectives that we work with for a long time being rotated out of detective folks and going back to patrol.

One of the reasons for that is there are not strong enough incentives for them to remain working as detectives. There's different pay scales for detectives, which is unfortunate. Their overtime is limited, so they'd rather do that 310 shift because they can make more money doing that.

They can make overtime, they can do part time duty where they can just simply make more money doing that. And it's a lot less stressful to do that kind of work than do detective work.

So when you have a detective who has a wealth of experience and knowledge to dedicate to the craft of investigation, and then you lose that detective back to patrol life because it's better for him, better for his family. Not to belabor the pronoun that a detective is a he. Obviously there are female detectives, but that's unfortunate.

When you lose that experience and then you're working with a new detective and trying to train essentially a new detective of what you're looking for in an investigation, that's hard, especially in a sex assault, especially in a homicide. But we understand that. I mean, they got to put their families first, they have to provide for their families.

And really there is a reality to burnout. We see it also as prosecutors, some of these cases are not meant to be done for long periods of time because you go a little bit nutty. And we get the reality of that too. But if you can't incentivize remaining on as a detective, you're going to lose good detectives.

So that experience walks out the door. So that's going to impact solve rates. The other thing I see as a prosecutor is supporting victims and supporting witnesses who have seen what has happened to victims.

There are inherent costs involved, especially for example, A tourist case, say a tourist is victimized, they get beaten up in Waikiki, but they survive. Unlike the one recently, they need to fly back for trial. So according to our statutes, we can support that up to a certain extent, but it's kept. Right.

So because of that cap, we can only support it to that cap. So any overage to that has to be absorbed by the victim because we are not permitted to supplement that. That would be unethical. As a prosecutor, I can't do that.

So there might be a service agency who might be willing to support that, but generally they can't support that either.

So with that cap being so low and barely being able to support the cost of a hotel, to put up that person who has to stay in a hotel in Hawaii, which is very expensive, they have to be able to pay for the hotel, they have to be able to pay for food and transportation.

That's a reality of getting that person to come here to testify and go to court. And not only that, prepare for court. That's reality.

And when I'm trying to explain to them that I'm sorry, I can't pay any more than what is allowed by statute, it's very hard to convince people to follow through with prosecution, trial and explaining that to them. On the front end of do you want to prosecute?

These are the realities, I have to be honest with you, of what I can do and what I cannot do. It's hard to get buy in a lot of times. We can't protect them. Where are they going to go? I can't ensure that a victim who lives in the neighborhood where this happened is going to be safe.

I can assist them with references to get a tro, but everybody knows a TRO is a piece of paper and is only good as the piece of paper is written on and the enforcement that follows through with that.

Those are all realities that law enforcement and prosecutors are dealing with every day that all impact clearance and closure to violent crime cases. And that's just the reality. You mentioned cybercrime. I'm not sure if you meant cybercrime or cyber technology. I don't know if you meant utilizing cyber technology in assisting with solving crime.

We'd love to do that. I watch TV shows where they use cyber technology in the assistance of solving crimes. I wish we are so constrained by the Fourth Amendment and our privacy laws in this state that that's nearly an impossibility. I wish we could do that.

We need search warrants for everything in this state and it is an absolute hindrance on prosecutors and law enforcement. If you ask just about any prosecutor if they would sacrifice their privacy for the benefit of a victim, they absolutely would because something needs to change in favor of victims and in favor of the safety of our community.

So those are my thoughts.

Okay with that. Members questions for Deputy Attorney General Pu? Yeah, Vice Chair, I just have a.

Question about the visitor who gets victimized in Hawaii and you mentioned the laborious steps that have to be taken. But the prep work, I'm just going to make up an example. I get assaulted. I'm from California. Do I have to? I imagine I physically have to be here when I testify.

But all the prep work and stuff, can't we do that via Zoom or teams or some kind of other to reduce that cost so that they don't have to be here from the pre beginning of trial to the not sentencing, but to the end of the trial? I don't know how long that might take.

So we just only bring them to Hawaii for the day before and after they testify and send them back?

We absolutely do that. We minimize that pre trial need to be here as much as we can, obviously, because we need to minimize the cost.

What I'm referring to is a violent sex assault victim or a child victim or a victim who is flying from out of country or from the East Coast, where I need to make sure that they're in the best position to testify under very traumatic circumstances, that they have had a good night's sleep at least, and that they are fully prepared.

So as far as preparing them for actual testimony, yeah, we can do that on Zoom. With a child witness, I'm a little bit reluctant to do that. With a violent sex assault, I'm a little bit reluctant to do that. I'd rather do that in person if at all possible. Usually the day before.

We do minimize how early we fly them in. This is not a vacation, but we want to make sure they've had sufficient rest, they've been able to adjust so that when they walk into the courtroom, they are well rested and they are well prepared for what's coming.

Okay. I have some follow up questions. Senator Fukunaga followed by Senator Rhodes.

I can appreciate, you know, the, the lack of resources within the specific agencies. Would an external group like Bash or other organizations be a potential source of additional assistance?

They have.

Okay, I'm sorry. Because it would seem that if we were to try and, you know, encourage and support more resources for organizations that are outside that could play that sort of intermediary role that would also help prosecutor's office as well as all various law enforcement agencies.

They are available to assist in. In our tourist cases. Yes, to some extent. For very particular things.

Senator Rhodes.

Yes. Thanks for being here today. I. I'd forgotten it was my bill, but SB428 did pass this year. It does increase the witness fees allowable. It still seems like a very modest amount to me because it went from. It hasn't changed in like 30 years or something. Right. So it went from $4 to $30.

But probably the more important was the provision that the actual expense of travel by common carrier on the basis of the means of transportation reasonably utilized. You have to come the shortest route and all that stuff. But is reimbursable. That went into effect on July 1. Is that of any benefit.

So the travel, meaning the flight cost is covered. That's not an issue. It's. The per diem rate is capped. Right. So the per diem eats up hotel and food. Those kinds of expenses, ground transportation and generally hotel will eat up the entire pertina. That's the hard part. Right. Because our hotels are just expensive.

Okay. So there's not another, there's not another statutory. There's not a, there's not another section of the law somewhere that says you can cover this, cover that kind of expense or you can't take it out of your general budget. I guess that's my. What I'm really asking is do I need to introduce another bill that covers the.

Covers hotel and makes the per diem higher or something along those lines.

I mean it might make sense to try and I'm just thinking out loud to make it more consistent with how we do for our government travel that obviously we can't go and stay somewhere lavish when we travel on the government. Stein. But obviously our victims and our witnesses in support of testifying at trial need to stay somewhere.

So if at least that wouldn't eat into their per diem.

So. But you put the per diem you're talking about is the. What was for decades $4 but now is 30. Is that the per diem number you're talking about.

I think the per diem is. I'm not sure what the rate is right now, but the way it's written, the per diem eats all of that. It's meant to cover the entire cost. Hotel, food, ground transportation, all your expenses. And that's why there's really.

There's actually ends up being a cost to a victim or a witness who needs to fly here to testify.

Yeah, no, that doesn't make any sense at all. So. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Shir.

Just a few questions and if I can call back up DLD as well. So, Deputy Attorney General. So is this. You mentioned about, you know, staffing shortages and that just recent line of questioning with Senator Rhodes. Will the AG's office in this year's budget come up with budgetary requests on some of the shortages that the Department has?

Because the law enforcement side of it is not our budget. I don't think it's not on the AG side.

Okay.

Okay. So from. From our side, I have basically about 60 authorized investigator positions, but I have 27 vacancies across a various, you know, for State Narcotics Office of Homeland Security, our internal affairs division, which also will investigate corrections, you know, and other things. So a lot of it has to do with the fact that we.

We pay egregiously lower than the counties we pay about across the board, about. And especially with the new incoming contract, about 22,000 less across the board. So it's nearly impossible for me to keep a straight face at a recruitment event when the table next to me says 79,000. And then when they come over to us it's 55.

And it's just like, zero, let me just go back and go to that other booth. Right. So some of the other things that we're dealing with as an agency is that when we're consolidated, I guess I'm not quite sure what the reason was, but a lot of the money was you funded.

And I think what the logic was back then was to ensure that we service certain individuals and then we get reimbursed. The problem with that is that there's some departments that are confused. Why are we billing them? Because we're a state agency. State agency. So for example, I'm currently down about 400,000 due to that type of agreement.

I don't want to out a particular Department because it's not only one, but if anything that is u funded could be moved to a funding because we're not against servicing it.

But when I got a scratch to say, well, can we get reimbursed, and then we have to show, like, zero, well, how many cases did you do for me? How many hours did that take? It's very difficult because, as Deputy Director shared, their caseload will include issues from dhs, issues from Dcr, issues from whatever.

And it'd be an accounting number to say, okay, well, I spent two hours on this case today. I spent an hour and a half on this, and then we'd Bill out. We have every intent to service all state agencies and beyond.

And if the money could just exist with us to begin with, it'd be much easier, I believe, for everyone.

So it's not so much that you need more funding for detectives or that it's just a matter of vacancy and pay rate. Is that correct?

So vacancy and Perry would be huge. And again, with anything that is you funded right now, the relationship with DOT works fine, but any other agency that utilizes us regularly, that requires us to essentially Bill them is just a little bit of a nightmare for our side.

But I do believe that I could be competitive because we do have things that are unique to the Department of Law Enforcement. For example, we have a lot of opportunities to work out on boats. We have the ability to move between counties, which, you know, for people that want to address cost of living, Honolulu is very expensive.

But if they were to transfer to, let's say, Big island or other parts of the state. So I do feel like I could create an attraction, but the 20 to $24,000 gap is just insurmountable. I want to acknowledge to not insult my county partners that they do take on the heavier load.

So I would be more than willing to have our guys be paid a little less to acknowledge the difference in caseload. But 24,000 is too far. I would accept a variance of anything less than 10,000.

I would accept in regards to the ability for our guys to recruit and our ability to do the job, and acknowledging that the counties are much busier.

Questions, Senator Rhodes?

I mean, I completely agree on the pay issue, and I think it's been. When we hear from hpd, I think we'll hear similar things. Although my understanding is the proposed contract for this upcoming couple of years is a 27% increase, which I hope will help because they're down, what, 274 officers? Something like that? 450. How many? 450.

450. Okay. Plus. But isn't this a collective bargaining issue? I mean, the state constitution gives workers the right to bargain. And you guys are in, what, unit 14. Correct, sir. So what So I think it's not working. I guess so.

So we've been trying to fight for years, so even with the previous Director, credit to the previous directors. But it's been an ongoing battle for about the last decade is what I understand. And we've been constantly. So, in fact, we're. We. We submitted a whole bunch of paperwork to De Herd to show the repricing.

Some of it is. And some of it is our own doing. Is that not necessarily. Have we acted in such a way that would substantiate, I guess, equal playing field with the counties? I like to think since, you know, I've come on and we put on a new direction, that my guys are doing very similar work.

And now the gap is just egregious. So it is a bargain unit, sir. I think that we're gonna have to. They're gonna execute a contract soon. I don't even think it's gonna match HPD's 555, I think. So the gap is just going to widen over the next four years. I do have some ideas. I don't have any.

I know budget is tight, but some of the things that I would like to present to the Legislature is at least allowing me to give a base match. So in other words, the gap is 24,000. Can we do a base match of 15,000?

So in other words, every year my guys get a check for 15,000 to close that gap. The reason why is that then it doesn't impact. It doesn't create a rollover into overtime, retirement and everything else. It's just because at the end of the day, if all agencies are staffed, the overtime burn would be low.

So in other words, people making 150 to 200 grand, that's out of necessity. Right? There's not enough officers. People are feeling beats.

But I remember a time in my career when I was still with HPD where there were only about 100 vacancies and overtime was sparse and you had to survive off of your base pay and then go and work special duty shifts. So, you know, it's one of those, like, kind of like a. Kind of cyclical issues.

But, you know, it'd be great if we could get support to at least allow me, like I said, a base match. And at least when we recruit at the things, it'd be like, you know, the county has 79,000, but we do 70 because we have a base match. Right.

We can't account for overtime and all these other things, but.

So, unfortunately, I've heard the story about this is a not a completely unfamiliar story. Elevator constructors, years ago, they have their own special way of funding them now because we couldn't get anybody to go leave the private sector. And it seems like a lot of times it comes back to De Herd. So I don't.

They're supporting us the best we can and we're trying to provide them with all the information, but truth be told, they are the gatekeepers in regards to position descriptions. And then once we get that hurdle, then we have to work with DLIR to basically say is what we're asking for appropriate.

I think what the concern that we're having is that law enforcement is such a unique job, such a unique profession, that unless you've done it, you really don't know the kind of hits you take. I mean, you know, the latest data is that all law enforcement will experience, well, likely in their retirement. 30% will have legitimate PTSD.

Right. So what price do you put on the fact that it is. It is. It's a one in three chance that when I live this career that I will leave it with a mental health disorder that I didn't come in it with. Right.

You know, so those are the things that you can't really put a dollar figure on. I to DHRDs credit, they did do ride alongs with us recently as we're trying to do this repricing. I think it was eye opening for the staff that participated.

I think they actually got scared a couple times and I think that they realized like, wow, you guys actually do a lot of similar activities that the counties do.

But is there any reason why during the bargaining process, unit 14 can't just come in and say, hey, you know what? These, even if we don't change the description, we really deserve more money than this. Is that not an option?

We tried with that very simplistic comparison, we tried to compare it to the counties and again without speaking for them, the summary of what I understand it to be is that we are not that the count that we are. We cannot use the county as a, as a comparison. I disagreed. I respectfully disagreed in that discussion.

And I said that if I can use an agency outside the state, you know, in regards to a bargaining unit discussion, then why wouldn't I be able to use an agency within the state? It doesn't make sense to me.

So some of the things that we're trying to do, Senator, overcome that is that that's why I'm pushing for the state police within the DLE which will be paid to the county and that would allow bargaining 14 to draft against our state police because I would be the one to attest that my state police do this and they're paid this acknowledging the bargaining 14 guys, the sheriffs, they are slightly less busy but you know, the disparity is just too far.

Okay, understood. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Sheriff.

Follow questions for Director Lambert. I just have a few questions. So you know, we do appreciate you attempting to work based on Senator Rhodes question on the repricing classification with DHRD. So hopefully something good comes from that. I want to talk about your vacancy funding.

Could you use vacancy funding for current deputy sheriffs and increasing their current rate to at least have retention now?

And it's something that we've explored. So the issue is that of the 114 vacancies I have majority of those fall into.which is a you funding. And Ed has been great. So I have no issues with that. But I can't control collapsing some of those positions and then transitioning that into.

We did meet with Randy Pereira to discuss that the cost savings of the 35 officers would only equate to about, you know, 2% across the board. So we are trying to explore that as another opportunity.

I think some of the vision from hga and again not to speak for them, but in the summary of our discussions is that they acknowledge that we may have to switch to a smaller, more well paid workforce.

In other words, there's less of us, we're working harder because the vacancies across the state, not only the DLE are pretty large. So we have discussed that as well. But I don't have enough vacancy savings to convert meaningfully.

And a couple other questions. So could state DLE do something like what Honolulu Police Department did with bonuses?

Absolutely. So if there was an infusion or a pot to pull from, we could. I would prefer to work on the back end. Honda Police Department has utilized it as a front end tool for recruitment.

I would like to, if funding was available, like I said, the base match to apply for retention because I think that a lot of times it's like we're going to be losing skilled people and I like to kind of as I figure out the front end, I like to retain those with. With experience.

And I think that a base match would actually do both upfront for recruitment as well as retention instead of segregating those two funding streams. Base match in A funds rather than. Yeah, base funds and yeah, base match within our. Within our General funding. Yes.

Okay. And then 22 other questions I have. These are the last ones is. Has to do specifically with the idea of a state police force. You know, other jurisdictions on the continent do have a Highway Patrol or something like that.

It's my understanding that state DLE works with our partners on our counties, and they do enforcement, say, on H1 freeway, H201, wherever it is, rather than the state function.

And is that something that. As we sort of maybe move forward to that. That where we collaborate with our local jurisdictions and then that would, I would imagine, have to create a new bargaining unit or classification for that.

Correct.

Absolutely. So basically, the goal is not to, you know, get in the way of what the counties are doing. The goal is not to create some kind of dynamic where it's, you know, us versus them. But really what it is is that state highways. Right.

Were given away years ago, even before I entered into hpd, and it's remained that way. But really, it is a state function if people are dying on state roadways.

So the idea is that if we can, as a dle, if we can kind of focus on the kind of specialty things, right, Fireworks, ag crimes, maybe take a little heavier role in traffic, and that would allow the counties to potentially reduce the resources in these very narrow areas and allow them to focus more on patrol function.

And I would think you would see the numbers on speeding and collaborating with them and other types of incidents that may happen on the highways hopefully come down.

Absolutely. And a lot of it has to do with priorities. So coming from the county and then moving to the state, a lot of times the counties will answer to the council Members first, rightfully so, within that stream. And. And then as state elected officials, you guys are kind of like second in line on your needs.

I feel like if we had a state police that when your guys, you know, your priority areas within your communities, that I would service yours first. So in other words, sometimes they align with your council, with your, you know, paired council members. Sometimes they don't.

When the issue is, when they don't, the state police would go ahead and focus in the areas that are priority for you folks. Okay.

And the last question I have is crime lab updates.

Okay, so in regards to the crime lab updates, so we have our full. Our fully functioning forensic drug laboratory, which has been in effect for a while. We do provide services to all. We are in significant discussions with DOT for the construction of the alcohol blood testing lab.

And the issue that they're having is that they've identified a space in Evola, but we were hoping to kind of smush it together with the explosives and firearms lab, the space in Evolet is not certified for the firearms and explosives, but they were, they are able to accommodate the alcohol.

So ideally, what I would envision for us into the future is that we would have a fully functioning state lab. Again, not to reinvent the wheel on what the counties do, but taking over what they don't have.

So, for example, I know for, you know, as hpd, they'll do a lot of the DNA, so maybe let's not invest there, right? Let's invest in the areas that their laboratory outsources. And again, you know, and. Or maybe we'll do DNA for the other counties, the smaller counties, because I know that they go to Honolulu.

So what I would envision is that we have a massive state lab. The benefit that we have at that is that because these cases come in, then we would be able to tell you folks as a Legislature statewide what the needs are right now.

You guys, you know, even through me, I would have to actually reach out to my counterparts at the county and ask for their data versus if it was a state lab, we would probably have much more accurate data in regards to accuracy of tests, you know, prosecution of individuals and other things that come with having an all in one solution.

Thank you. Any other follow up questions? If not, thank you, Director Lambert and Deputy Attorney General Kuu. Next up is Honolulu Police Department. We have Acting Assistant Chief Brandon Nakasato of the Investigative Bureau and Detective Alexander Wasleski the fourth, did I say that correctly? Of Information Technology Division. Good morning.

Thank you for joining, joining us and thank you for waiting.

Good morning. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to do the presentation about solve solve crime, solve rates for violent crimes. Just want to let you know that the H Honolulu Police Department is dedicated and committed to bringing justice to victims of all crimes. Yeah.

But also with that being said, violent crimes is one of the chief priorities, Chief Phoenix priorities. So we've definitely been focused on that.

And because of Hawaii's uniqueness and our culture here, I'm proud to say that I know every one of the individuals here, of the head agencies that are here, and we all continue to collaborate together with that mission in mind. Right. So thank you guys.

But so in terms of, I can say that like homicide closure rates for 2024 for HPD was 100% right. We've identified the suspects in all the cases. Okay. That's due to the dedication and again, the commitment of our detectives and of the Department. And also, again, this doesn't happen In a vacuum. Right.

There's, there's other agencies that also help, help with that too. So we're proud of that. As far as some of the points that the study showed, we're definitely looking at training, training up our detectives, getting more standardized, getting everybody up to that top tier detective level for all crimes.

But again, focus will be on violent crimes, especially firearms cases. We do need better oversight. Right. So, meaning also we're looking at better ways to train up our managers or supervisors, mainly at the lieutenant level and sergeant, so they can have better oversight of police processes and functions that we need.

Because like Deputy Derek Pu said that the State of Hawaii, we have so much restrictions on rules of evidence and how things can be entered into the court process. Technology is super big.

You know, we talk about staffing, but, you know, we really are trying to look at technology and how that can help solve crimes and help the public be safe and also for safety for our officers. But with that being said, procurement laws are kind of a little roadblock in that process.

If I were to say something about that, the next thing that we probably could get help on is outreach. You know, we see some of the crimes deal with mental, mental health, some of the suspects. So if we, we, we do collaborate with our partners. Right.

But if I, I guess if there was more avenues out there to, to help, to outreach for us, because as police or law enforcement, we have so only so much that we can do criminally. Right.

We do want, would like to count on more partnerships, more community outreach, maybe partnerships that could deal with that issues on a proactive level so that it could actually prevent violent crime down the road. Right. With some kind of rehabilitation or follow up to. Senator.

Kind of a follow up question based on your comments.

We had an opportunity to meet with Director Ireland this week and one of the things that he had talked about was an expansion of the way that Core is working with HPD to pursue kind of a modified MH3 type of process whereby it would be, I guess, more procedurally defensible to be able to use the HPD and CORE personnel to be able to remove people who may be in a location where, you know, they are disrupting others and in the past have not been able to use that process as effectively.

I don't, I don't think I'm describing it that well, but he seemed to be, you know, very, I guess, confident that this approach, you know, with HPD was going to actually make a big difference. Could you comment on that, Senator?

Thank you for that. I've Heard of the talks about it and the planning of that. I don't know any more specifics about it, but if that's one of the avenues, definitely, I know Director Ailan is, is involved with that. And yes, if that's another tool that we could use, that would definitely help us. Right.

Thank you.

But so again, overall, I want to say that we're continually, continually looking at our crime, our abilities to solve crimes, but there's many factors to it.

Anything else? No. Thank you. Okay, Members questions? Vice Chair Wakai.

We heard about your shortage of 450 or so officers. Is there a way we can be helpful by just taking the, the Manini stuff off of your plate? And the mini ones meaning the citations like King Street 3:30, right. You gotta move your car.

I see a police officer over there waiting for the tow truck. I don't know how that long that takes, but couldn't we have like deputized individuals help issue parking citations?

I say this because I was just talking to the Waikiki Improvement District this past week and they're, I wouldn't say frustrated, but they want to clean up Waikiki and be helpful.

And then they were saying like how there are people who in on Kalakaua Avenue that are selling bootleg whatever kind of T shirts that are competing with the guys who are legitimately leasing space in Waikiki, but they don't want to bother you guys with going and issuing a citation to this guy selling bogus items.

Is there a way we could help with just like. So Waikiki has that ambassador program, so they have kind of trained guys, they. Don'T do arrests and stuff. But could we start utilizing entities like the Waikiki Improvement Association Ambassadors to take some of the like really small kind stuff off of your plate?

I. That 's a good question. Just, just digesting that right now. I would say that we could potentially look at that they, the ambassadors are a deterrent, help with deterrence and of crime. However, I would look at them also from a safety aspect and their training that would come into play.

We wouldn't want somebody to get into a confrontation because a lot of situations, even parking tickets and moving along can lead to confrontations which can lead to that person being injured. So, you know, training would be a big issue if we were to ask for those things to be addressed by others.

Okay, but you're receptive to the idea of deputizing citizens to do citations that.

I think we would have to ask the chiefs about that and then have further discussion. But we could definitely discuss that, sir. Yes, I, I know they've tried to expand that program into downtown area. Right, the business improvement district there.

Right, right. And we want them for the stadium too.

Yes, sir.

Good. Senator Rhodes.

I had a follow up on Senator Kai's first. So isn't this more or less what the traffic. I can't remember what it's called. The guys who check the traffic meters. Isn't that sort of the same thing that Senator Wakai is talking about, only maybe in a different area?

Are they full on police officers, the one who do the. They have the little cars that go around. Parking meter enforcement.

Yes, yes, we do have the parking meter enforcement.

And they're full blown. They're full blown police officers.

No, they're not commissioned. They're commissioned officers or commissioned to allow them to issue citations.

Okay, so I mean, I guess that's kind of what you're talking about in terms of like a specialized, maybe not as thoroughly trained, but can take care of certain kinds of things. So I guess there's a. I guess my real point is it seems to me there's a precedent for what Senator Wakaya is suggesting already.

There's a process to it, but if you're looking at addressing pedaling or bullying, which would be crimes, then I would think that would bump it up to another.

A safety level of confrontation that may occur. Okay. I can't believe those parking guys don't get confrontation sometimes, but they do.

But you know, if they do get into a confrontation, they will call radio one of a sworn officer to come right away.

So, on a different tangent, I think it was Agu's discussing or describing that your detectives sometimes will sort of. Sort of. It's more attractive to them as a pay package to go back to patrol and take more overtime. Is that a CBA issue or is that some sort of internal rule? I'm sorry.

Well, so, so what, What I think, I think was the AG was describing was that some, some detectives say, you know what? I will get paid more if I go back to patrol work and just take overtime. And so why am I putting myself through this?

Is the way that's set up an internal rule or is that a collective bargaining agreement question?

I think that would be a personal choice.

No, but I mean the fact that you could actually do that, the fact that the patrol officer pays more than the detective. I don't know, that doesn't make any sense to me. But maybe there's some rationale for it.

That I want to say that patrol, that they the schedule as well as the opportunity maybe for overtime. But the pay is already set.

That's what I'm driving at. So how does. Why is the incentive structure set up that way? Is it a collective bargaining thing or is it some internal police rule?

I don't think it's a rule, Senator, or a CBA issue at this point. The CBA issue for that would just be for us as a Department to allow our employees to transfer onto a. Like I said, division or a place in the Department. So.

So maybe. I mean, why is. Why is it. Maybe I'm. I would have thought a detective. That's. That's a higher level position. You got to have more experience, more specialized skills. Why is that not paid more?

That. That's a. That's a good question.

Okay.

That would be a cba. Definitely be a CBA bargaining issue. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. So, in regards to that, we did look at, from our HR standpoint about our staffing. So in cid, our criminal investigation division itself, we've continue to average between 85 and 90 staffing.

There, again, we haven't seen a drastic decrease in staffing.

It's usually have a threshold. Right. Like. So, for example, like Waikiki, you attempt to have that over 90% staff compared to other.

I guess this. It's per particular district. Right. The staffing level of patrol officers on. On duty at the time. I just. I'm just looking at a pure staffing level of us when we have personal movements to distribute and make promotions and whatnot, our personnel. And again, this. The commitment is still to staff cit.

One thing I've always wondered, you know, Senator Fukunaga and I, we were at the council for almost a decade, probably longer, but I noticed hpd, you rotate majors and captains and lieutenants, similar to what the military does. Yes. And sometimes you lose that connection to the area community.

So is that more of an internal role or is that just because. I would think it would be helpful to just. And I get it. You're attempting to get an officer promoted to get experience that they need.

But I would think if you want someone there for a longer period of time, if they're doing good work, rather than, okay, we're gonna rotate you out. You're only here for like, one year.

I think sometimes there's external or, I want to say, factors that come into play that, you know, sometimes we can't help. From an HR point of view, there's other strategic factors that come into play during certain times of the year. The chiefs, they may say a priority is in another area. We need that commander to move there.

I want to say that's why the importance of setting that foundation of the training and the use of technology at the more frontline level will be very key in moving forward. So that's more of an internal. That's more of internal. Okay, yes.

Correct. Okay. Intereting. Okay.

Is there anything else that you wanted to share? Any questions? Okay. If not, thank you. Okay. Next we will go to Hawaii County Police Department. Thank you for waiting so patiently. Online we have Major Sander Finke.

Yes, Good morning. Good morning. Senators, Chair, Members of the Committee. I have, I'd like to share my, my screen if you guys don't mind so you can get an idea of. Yes, it, if we can. Thank you. Can you guys see the screen now? Yes. Okay, great.

So I, I went over the questions that you guys had with regard to reporting. We were having some software issues and training issues on our end which we're finally able to get resolved this year, earlier this year about March or April. And then we had to double time.

We had all of our records people working overtime to try to get our reporting up to, up to, up to its current state. So we were able to get our reporting currently it just wasn't reflected on the dashboard yet. So I wanted to give you guys a run through on our statistics.

So we're at a 29 overall clearance rate with 522 total violent incidences for 2024. That, that would include a clearance rate 59% for our aggravated assaults per 100,17% for homicides per 100,39% for rape and sexual assault and 41% for robberies. Now homicide, those types of cases take a while, sometimes more than a year to clear.

But at this point that's, that's where we're sort of lagging behind the, the state average. The other, the other categories we're, we're at or above now.

I did, I put, I put together what we're currently doing with recruiting and retention in terms of overall funding and I'm sorry, in terms of overall positions, we're 7070 vacancies sworn out of 493. And we have 43 vacancies out of 161 for civilian. We don't have a standalone recruitment or retention funding line item in our budget.

So it comes out of our General Administration training budget which is about $291,000 a year. The, the types of funding we have now are our recruit classes, background investigation, advertising and travel. Currently we have a $5001 time recruitment bonus for new officers who complete their probation.

We're also funding software and licenses for background investigators and also annual licenses. We recently did a domain changeover to Hawaii police.gov from our previous Hawaii county.gov and so we had to redo all of our Microsoft licenses.

So that's pretty costly we're looking at because we're, we've been hiring, we, we've gone to open recruitment so we've been hiring a lot, a lot of, a lot more recruits. So we need more mdts and, and, and laptops because our, our staffing is going up. So that's, that's been costing, that's been costing us a lot of money.

Currently we're doing, we have what's called the Kalawa Nui. I'm sorry Kaloa Nui Internship program, which is a four year structured program for uh, Hilo students who participate and complete four months of paid and unpaid internships rotating through our divisions.

Um, they, they earn college credits while they're doing this and it's designed as a recruitment pipeline to develop and retain local, local talent. And we, we first began that this, this fall semester.

Major. Are you able to share your, your slides page by page? I'll, I'll try to do that. Let me. If you're able to. If, if not, if you could just send us a copy of the other.

Yeah, I'll definitely send you guys a copy of it. But let me, let me get you guys a little bit better view. Yeah, yeah, it's much better. Thank you. Okay, I'm so, I'm sorry about that. So currently we have eight interns in our Kaloa Nui internship program which are in different areas within our Department.

We made continuing education a priority and we've integrated it into our recruitment and retention strategy. So the kanip Hawaii and Hawaii Police Department currently have tuition reimbursement for officers who are seeking degrees in police related study. That's bachelor's and master's and I believe doctorate as well. First, if somebody, if somebody goes to school, they pay their tuition.

They can apply for the tuition reimbursement through the county and whatever the county doesn't cover, then our Department will cover the Hawaii Police Department recruits. We, we partnered with University of Hawaii at Hilo last year and we've got it to the point now where we, we begun teaching English 100 in our recruit classes.

We have a Professor come in, they'll come in twice, twice a week and they actually teach English 100 class and they register our recruits for the University so they actually get three credits of English 100 when they, when they graduate recruit class.

The other thing is we, we've also developed a specific Administration of Justice Program which is police focused with the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

So the, the Hawaii Police Department officers, and this is not just limited to recruits the Hawaii Police Department officers who enroll in the Administration of Justice bachelor's degree program with, uh, Hilo, they can take a directed studies course where they'll receive 12 credits towards their Aj degree for their attendance and recruit training.

So if, if you look at it as a, as a recruitment also retention thing is somebody can come out of recruit class essentially with a whole, a whole semester worth of credits, a whole semester worth of college credits by the time that they're done with, with recruit class, which is, which to me I think it, it also with the tuition reimbursement, it also helps as a retaining, a retaining model where these, these people are, you know, now, now they're in, now they're in the Aj career course bachelor program.

That's at least another three years. Sometimes if they have all their prerequisites, it'll be two years, but you're looking at three to four more years. You definitely are going to have with, with our officers because they're not only working for us, but they're finishing their degrees as well.

And we get a, we get a better educated officer as a, as a product and of that. Now going into recruit class statistics for 20242025 fiscal year, we had three recruit classes, 38 total recruits started. As of 2025, we only have 20 left. So you see that that's a high attrition rate.

We also had for this year we've done two classes, 27 recruits started and we have 15 currently. So same thing. The. There is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to recruitment and hiring. And at this point it's not, it's not competitive like it used to be.

When I first got in 25 years ago, there was, there was 490 applicants and 150 people who ran the, the, the agility test. Now, now we have, we're a good agility test is 12 to 15 people running it. So it's, it's like 10 of what it was before.

And so if, if you qualify, if you make it through the process, you're going to get hired. You know, there's no, it's not, not us taking 20 of the best applicants. It's us taking everyone who, who made it through the process.

So what's happening with that is, you'll see that's reflected in our, in our attrition rate with, with the recruit classes and with the starting officers because people are finding out that, hey, it's, it's not actually something I wanted.

I'm doing this because I Needed a job and I, you know, it's not something I actually want to follow through with. So even with that, because we're running more classes every year, we're running open recruitment, we are steadily gaining in officer count.

The state support that we would like to see, you know, not necessarily immediately but down the road is that maybe that we can use a tax credit for sworn officers as a recruiting tool. You know, because of our high cost of living to Hawaii.

You, you have mainland applicants, which we do, we have people coming down from the mainland. And any, any little bit can help in terms of affording, paying less taxes to afford, you know, afford the housing, afford the higher cost of food, higher cost of living.

The other, the other initiatives that the state could help out with is if, if they, they did statewide or joint county marketing campaigns, television campaigns, like kind of like stuff that the Hawaii Tourism Authority used to do where they would advertise, the state would advertise, make television ads in, in different states for, for our, for our law enforcement.

The other major ones are if, if there's any sort of loan forgiveness or long term retention incentives that the state could add, that'd be great. Supplemental state funding for recurring high cost items. These, these items which we get with technology.

Technology is a big thing and technology you need to constantly upgrade not not only your, your hardware but your software and your software licenses. And when you get more people, you have to buy more licenses and they're recurring.

So any assistance that the state could give with regard to that for us in order to keep Hawaii people in Hawaii, maybe tuition waivers or scholarships with state park for children of Hawaii.

Law enforcement officers who enroll in UH and HCC Community College system upon their graduation from high school might keep more kids in our state in our, in our, in our school system and educate them here instead of shipping them off to the mainland to educate them also.

One thing that goes towards violent crime that I added in here at the end was the Big island doesn't have an inpatient state mental health treatment center. I think that would, that would go a long, long way towards, towards addressing violent crime on our island.

I'm not, I'm not, I can't speak for the other islands, but I know that, I know that if we had more treatment available on our island, more inpatient treatment available on our island, like the court could, could mandate somebody to treatment over here as opposed to shipping them off to a different island or some other method, I think that would go a long way towards assisting that.

And that's a long term Thing I know, even if it started today, let's see, looking at 10 years down the road, but I think that that needs to be looked at for ilec and essentially that's, that's what I have.

Okay, thank you so much, Major Finke. Questions, Members? Okay. If not, thank you so much for your presentation and also some of the proposed solutions. Really appreciate it.

You're welcome.

We'll move on to Maui County Police Department. I believe they're joining us via Zoom. Oh, in person. Oh, thank you for being with us. In person. If you could just state your name.

Yeah, this is Chief Grego Komodo with the Maui Police Department. Morning Chair, Vice Chair and Committee Members. Okay. So while it's fresh in my mind, I want to give my opinion to. I know Senator Rhodes had a question about why guys would leave a specialized assignment to go back to patrol.

And at least I can't answer for the other agencies, but at least for Monterey County it's because there's more opportunity for overtime in patrol because unlike the specialized assignments, there's a minimum amount of officers that need to be to go out every shift. So there's a need to feel that shift.

Whereas opposed to where if you're looking at detectives there, their workload is based on an assignment. So there's no built in overtime in that sense where as opposed to going back to patrol.

And like everyone else, you know, we're running short so there's, there's a beat that needs to be filled or whatever and it's a 12 hour shift so there's more opportunity for overtime.

So at least for Maui, that's an incentive for like a lot of our detectives or specialized officers to go back to patrol, especially towards the end of the career where they're trying to build up their high three. So I don't know if that answers your question.

In regards to violent crime, we're just going to keep it at violent crime because like everyone else, the other law enforcement agencies and the county police departments, you know, it's a national trend where the manpower is an issue.

So at the patrol level, yeah, the cases they're generated at the patrol level, but then specifically violent crimes, once the report is made, then they get assigned to our detectives, which are traditionally more seasoned officers, they get promoted to detectives and all that.

For us, Maui County in regards to violent crime and for our Crown data reporting, this includes murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assaults, which includes domestic violence cases. So our numbers are, you know, there's a to date for the year, there's like a 6 prison drop as far as the number of incidents. So that's.

That's not much of a drop. Whereas we're still working with the. With the same amount of detectives. And right now we're working at a 4042% capacity. So we have. We have a lot of vacancies as far as our detectives. So we're trying to prioritize, or we do prioritize the violent. Violent crimes as far as case assignments.

But as far as recruitment, we have funding for recruitment and we have some programs for recruitment, but I think where we don't have as much resources available is the retention of our officers. Specifically for the. The senior officers, which would be our. Include our detectives. If you. If you look at. Well, at least for Miami County.

Where are we at? Sorry, I gotta look at. We have a retention incentive for our dispatchers. We have. This upcoming fiscal year, we have 1.1 million allotted for retention pay for dispatchers, and that is actually partially funded by our state E911 board.

So if we're looking at retention, as far as support from the state, maybe we could come up with some sort of program for retention pay for officers. I know last. Last Legislature, there was a Bill that was proposed for a drop. A drop program, but that. That didn't go anywhere. But, you know, it's.

That's a real popular option for officers as far as our senior officers having something like that. So technology, I think, you know, funding for technology would be great. Last year or to date or last year, actually, we had two murders, and we were able to make arrests in both of those.

But what contributed to that was the use, at least for us. It's new technology as far as, like, license plates readers and cell phone tracking. So if we can kind of expand on that, that would be great. I know the DL mentioned the crime lab for us too. You know, we're.

We're limited as far as our crime lab technology, so we outsource to hpd, but HPD has got a huge workload too, so sometimes we have to go to the mainland so that. That just, you know, delays the turnaround as far as the testing and stuff like that. So, you know, that's. That's one of the.

A wish list that if we could have. If we could, you know, build our own. Our own crime lab, you know, that would be. That would be helpful too. So. But yeah, that's all I have as far as the Makani piece. So if you guys have any questions.

Thank you. Chief Komodo, Senator Rhodes.

Thanks. So I thank you for the follow up on the question I posed earlier. So I, I'm to the point where I'm understanding that that seems to be the case across the, the PDs, that it's actually more lucrative to go away from the specialized area. My question is why.

Why is that the policy of the police departments to pay patrol officers more? Or is it something to do with the way the collective bargaining set up? Or is it.

No, it's not policy, just opportunity. Because we are, we are short handed.

Why not change it? I mean, if we need detectives and it's a, it's a deservedly a higher paying job, then why don't, why isn't that the, why don't we change our priorities so that detectives are paid better and they don't have.

So, so yeah, so that would be a CBA question. Okay.

Yeah. So at this point then the. I'm assuming Shopo is your. Is the representative state. They haven't made it a priority to be sure that detectives get a better deal than returning to a patrol position.

Well, if you look at the detectives, it's not necessarily a higher paying job, right? No, it's the overtime part of it. Right. So when you look at the pay scale, you know, the detectives, whether it's a sergeant or a corporal or an officer, the pay scale is the same. The job description doesn't change the pay scale.

It's the position, the rank position. So like a sergeant in patrol, I understand, is getting paid the same as a sergeant in a detective sergeant, they're getting the pain.

So to avoid that problem, you would actually have to either pay. You wouldn't be able to solve it. Well, you have to use some other method to make it.

You'd have to, you'd have to create, create a higher paying position. Like if you wanna, you know, if you, if you want to say it's a detective get paid more than a patrol sergeant. That's. Even if they're the same rank. Yeah, that would be a CBA. CB18. Yeah.

All right, understood. Thank you. Okay. And then from Director Clement's presentation, he did mention about Maui and Big island not having stats. So what you read is you guys actually do have.

So yeah, we do have stats. So I mean, you know, I just, just, I, I'm assuming just like every other agency, you know, we have to do our, our uniform, our UCR Uniform Crime Reporting System and our, our nibrs. We, we entered through that.

That's, that's all national databases and internally we have our we do our own tracking. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And then on. On the issue of the crime lab, so, yeah, you. How much of that are. Are you. Is Maui county outsourcing? Rather than going. I mean, outsourcing. I mean, like, going to the continent and not to hpd?

That I. I can't answer. But we do. We do that. Obviously, you know, HPD would be first choice because they're here, they're local. Right, right, right.

But again, like I said, you know, they have their own caseload that sometimes where it comes to, like, high profile or high priority cases, especially violent crime, you know, there's an urgency to. To send it out for testing. Even though there is that delay in turnaround, at least it got sent out and the. The process.

Testing process has begun, so. But, yeah, I don't have a percentage on this.

Okay. That's all I have. Okay. If not. Chief Okamoto, thank you for being here in person and thank you for. Thank you. Your attendance here today. We'll now move on to two more agencies. Members, thank you for your patience. To these agencies, we have the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney's Office and Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney's Office on zoom.

So we'll start with Honolulu. Mr. Daniel Shimizu. Are you related to Representative Shimizu? No relation. Welcome.

Good morning, Chair Members of the Committee. My name is Danny Shimizu. I'm a prosecutor.

Oh, if you could speak directly in the mic so those that are online can hear you.

Okay. I'm a prosecutor with the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office. I work in the screening and intake division. So basically, once the police make a HPD makes an arrest, they'll submit the case to us for review, or in cases where they have identified a suspect but no arrest has been made, then we'll review those as well.

And so my division just deals with fellow felonies, but we don't do all felonies. We don't do domestic violence crimes, elder abuse crimes, sex assault crimes, and we don't deal with the homicides. The homicides have a specialized team for that. But I like to say that we work closely with hpd.

We have respect for what they do, and, you know, generally, I believe our relationship is good. And. And then with regard to violent crimes, we try to prioritize all the violent crimes, which are the felony assaults, the robberies, the terroristic threatening cases, and attempted murders, that kind of thing.

So those we try to expedite and charge, if charges are warranted, as soon as possible. We do have a different standard from the Police Department because they make their arrests based on probable cause. But we only charge. It's been our office policy to only charge when we can believe we can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

So sometimes there may be a disagreement in opinion between the Police Department and my office. But generally we work well together and they respect what we do and we respect what they do because we do have different jobs. Okay. And then that's about all I had.

I think no one's going to have any to make any remarks, but I'm willing to take any questions and if the Committee has any questions they think of later. Your Committee Clerk has my email. She can email me and, you know, we'll try to get those answers for you.

Thank you, Mr. Shimizu. Questions. Okay? If not, thank you. And lastly, Hawaii County Prosecutor Kelden Waljan, thank you for waiting patiently. If you're still online.

Can you hear me?

Yep, we can hear you.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members. Director Clement, appreciate the opportunity to be able to participate today and share a little bit. I, you know, I agree a lot with the, our counterparts and the others who have spoken earlier today. You know, the numbers that were shared across our cedar. To be honest, quite shocking.

Last week I attended a, a meeting with the Governor's Committee on Crime and during that, during that briefing they shared the, you know, Attorney General's Office. Recently, their branch, their research Institute branch recently released a new public NIBRS database that's available to share data that's collected regarding crime trends across the entire state.

I think, you know, looking at it over the last couple days, I think it's, it's quite, it's quite shocking to see the numbers and you know, obviously we all have a lot of work that we, that we can do. I want to share a little bit about a few things that's happening here on Hawaii Island.

You know, shared by Major Thinking earlier talked about some of the technological advancements that HPD has embarked upon over the last couple of years and the same thing that goes for our office as well.

You know, recently transitioned to a new case management system similar to the same system that they have in Honolulu at the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office called Prosecutor by Carpel, offers a little bit more robust system than what we've had in the past. Our system was very outdated and antiquated.

The system that we have is interfaced with the Hawaii Police Department's Stillman record management system. So it provides more rapid sharing of data. We, we recently switched over our, our domain as well to upgrade some of our systems.

I'm hoping that with that we'll be able to get better, better data and looking at some of these crime rates because like some of the, I have some concerns regarding the, the data and the statistics with these clearance rates because it seems to me that these numbers are really, really low.

And I'm, I'm, I'm hoping to see, I'm hoping they're not as accurate as, as some people think. I'm hoping that the data that we have is actually, we'll be able to look at it actually figure out whether or not if it's that accurate because I have my concerns on how accurate the data is.

About the, the data that was presented by Director Clement or from the major, from Hawaii county because Director Clement's data is only Oahu and Kauai.

The Some of the data that was mentioned by Major Finkie So I'll talk to Major Finkie.

Oh, okay, gotcha. Okay.

You know, with some of the things that were discussed earlier, you know, regarding mental health, Major Finkie mentioned this, and I think this is really important. You know, we don't have inpatient psychiatric services here on Hawaii Island. Every, every if we have someone that, that is experienced that type of need, they'll have to be flown to Oahu.

And one of the things that's important to note is there's definitely a correlation between violent crime and mental health related issues.

And I think that's what's very frustrating a lot of times because you'll have a situation where someone who has an identified mental health issue will, you know, engage in a violent crime, whether it be a homicide, a serious domestic violence case or a type of robbery.

And I think those types of situations can be very frustrating where you, you, you have a documented history. So I think, you know, looking at inpatient psychiatric services and expanding them across the state would be very, very helpful.

You know, one thing I thought was really important mentioned by Deputy Attorney General Pu was just something that we all have to deal with in law enforcement. The individual rights of the criminally accused here in Hawaii are very highly protected. It makes our job very, very hard.

So it's just something that people have to take into consideration that one of the, and the reality of that is it also makes it difficult for people wanting to be police officers or law enforcement officers. And that in. That makes it hard to, to retain and recruit. You know, so it's just something to. To keep in mind.

I want to share a little bit about victim services. You know, I appreciate the presentation that was provided by Director Clement.

I looked through some of the documents as well that CSG provided and you know, looking at lifting limitations and restrictions upon criminal, the Crime Victim Compensation Commission and looking to how we can improve and Fund our individual victim witness programs across the state in the individual counties in their prosecutor's office.

I think is really important because currently there are limitations imposed upon those programs and restrictions that impact the delivery of victim services. In addition, I think it's important to note that it's been trending every year.

Our Victims of Crime act funding, Voca funding, which is federally provided to the individual through the state and then to the counties that we use to Fund our victim witness programs, has been cut every year. It's getting small, it's getting reduced. So it's something that the cost is having to be shifted towards the county.

Something that we have to look at if we can get Additional support from the state that would be very, very helpful. This was mentioned by a couple of different people who spoke today regarding the state lab. I think Chief Okimoto from Maui talked about it.

I know Director Lambert talked about it, Director Deputy J. Pu and Major Finky also mentioned funding for a state lab is would be crucial. Right now our county does rely heavily upon the Honolulu Police Department's Scientific Investigation Section or SIS for DNA testing, ballistics, sex assault kit testing.

And if they're unable to help us with a quick turnaround, we're having to reach out outsource to oftentimes in California. So we'll work with serological institutes or siri and I mean we're talking about something that could be testing that could cost anywhere from 1020, $30,000.

You know, these costs will then be shifted towards law enforcement and it could impact the investigation later. Our prosecution case, I think it goes without mentioning, but Hawaii island we have very limited resources and funding.

You know, one of the things they talked about with in the CSG presentation was accountability and the importance of accountability and restoring and maintaining the public's trust in our criminal justice system. 1 this is a particular issue on, on our island because of the inadequacies that our current correctional facilities provide.

The Hawaii Community Correctional center is the most overcrowded correctional facility in the state. It's been that way for years. I think the most, the most recent report that was released by Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was released just the other day and it had the over occupancy at over 132%.

And what's important to note about that is that 93% of those people in custody, HCCC they're being held on felony charges. So we're talking about pretrial detainees, sentence felons, sentence felon probationers and probation and parole violators 93%. So like 277 of the 299 guys in custody ACCC being held on felony charges.

The misdemeanor offenders that are being held most likely those are all domestic violence offenses. You know, we're not people aren't in custody for failure to appear as our content of courts or low level property offenses or simple possession of Marijuana charges. These are all felons that we have in custody. There's no West Hawaii Correctional facility.

So everybody has to be transported back and forth each day. You know, it, it complicates things for not just police prosecutors, but for the sheriffs, for Department of Law Enforcement, for corrections that has to maintain all of these transports It's a serious public safety concern.

I'm hoping that, you know, in the next couple of years we can try to prioritize construction of a correctional facility on our island. And the reality is the correctional facility, the limitation of the space, it, it imparts the ability to bring programming, sufficient programming into that space.

So as a result we don't get to provide sufficient pre release reintegration programming. So things like social services coordination, employment, housing, healthcare, those things are difficult to provide and get set up before someone gets released just in conducive as to the space.

The other thing is because of the over occupancy, judges are reluctant to maintain bail or sentence people to lengthy incarceration terms. So that again, that imparts the, or it inhibits the public's trust in the, in the system. You know, talking about lack of resources, our island lacks dual diagnosis residential treatment programs.

So oftentimes we'll have to try to utilize off island services. If, if there's a resolution in the case that it, that is necessitated upon someone getting into a residential treatment program and no residential treatment program is available, that person could be sitting incarcerated longer because they can't get, there's no bed space.

So those types of things are significant barriers. And because of those limited resources they impart the ability for our court supervision authorities to utilize those types of resources. You know, so intake, service center, probation, parole, they don't have the same tools that they may have on Oahu.

The other thing that I think is important, given our limited resources and facilities, when we do have construction on our island, I think it's really important to try to have a coordinated construction of facilities. We have this beautiful courthouse in, in, in Kona.

But one of the things that we don't have is we don't have the, we don't have a West Hawaii correctional facility. So you know, the other thing is when we're, when we're building like a, like a courthouse, it's important to have adjacent, you know, services that are related to the correctional system or criminal justice system nearby.

You know, public defender's office, intake service center, those types of things. In, In Hilo, if somebody gets released from the courthouse that they're ordered to go to intake service center. If they don't have Trans. These people lack resources, they lack support services. They might not make it to the intake service center.

You know, it might be something like it's raining. You know, something like that might stop them from walking to the intake service center. Having, having the intake service center located right at the courthouse would probably be so much more efficient means of ordering somebody to, to get the services that they need and check in.

One of the things that I think is it was noted in the CSG shared data is the, you know, the importance of having family justice centers that are like a one stop shop for resources for victims.

But taking it one step further, you know, if we can't have a, you know, a criminal justice related family justice center, you know, one of the things that would be really helpful and this has been identified in some, some other jurisdictions is having family resource centers.

And what a family resource center is is a, it's a facility that provides programming for, to help the family unit, you know, after school program, childcare, substance abuse treatment, a safe meeting place to have, to have meetings.

And if we were to have those family resource centers, I ident located in identified crime hotspots, you know, like for, for in Oahu, maybe in, like in the, in the, in, in the public housing, you know, in these different areas having those types of family resource centers.

I know we've seen a lot of things on the news about things that are happening in, in public housing, you know, having family resource centers located in those, in those communities that might be something that's really helpful to help reduce crime. Now all the other presenters talked about law enforcement being understaffed.

I'll try not to go too in depth into that. But you know, the difficulty to retain and recruit continues for police officers is significant problem. You know, here in Hawaii, police officers have to serve 30 years with an age requirement to be eligible for full retirement.

Whereas in many other jurisdictions in the US continent they've reduced retirement requirements to 20 years or 25 years of service. As a result, many veteran police officers here in the islands have sought lateral hiring transfers to jurisdictions outside of our state.

Some of these jurisdictions are offering very high lateral signing bonuses, you know, anywhere from 50,000 to $100,000. And you know, some of these jurisdictions also have retention incentives such as double overtime longevity pay.

You know, looking to see how we can support our police officers, whether it be maybe it might be something as simple as looking at the retirement age requirements, you know, work and working with the, working with the, with the union.

One of the other things that was mentioned was we talked about the state lab, but in addition to that, I know there's been discussions regarding a state law enforcement officer training facility. I would advocate that there be some consideration and thought that maybe that facility should be located on Hawaii Island.

You know, we offer lower construction costs, we have the space available it will be beneficial for our local community providing an increased law enforcement presence. And I think it might be a nice boost to our economy. I know you guys are laughing, but think about it for a second. Puna is a big district.

I think state owns land out there. It might be a really good training ground.

You guys could do a, you know, you know, I know it involves a lot of, a lot of red tape to, to get through, but that might be a good location where you know, having a, a, a law enforcement firing range, a dedicated one. We don't have one here on, on this island.

It would be something to be really beneficial to, to the community. And one of the last things I want to talk about was just crime prevention and the focus of the, the CSG initiatives that were shared.

You know, one of the examples is the Omaha360 example and it talks about, you know, collaboration between law enforcement and different community stakeholders regarding crime, crime safety. You know, here in Hawaii island we do some of those things already in different segments.

You know, we have multi, we, you know, we value the multidisciplinary team approach for both domestic violence and sexual assault. Our office actually has a dedicated crime prevention unit.

And what our crime prevention unit, its focus is, we focus on capacity building efforts to address crime prevention, emerging issues in our communities such as domestic violence, sex assault, substance misuse and juvenile issues.

And you know, we try to get out there, we spread awareness about different issues working with, with our school resource officers, with HPs in our different communities and with, with the Department of Education. And I think it's, it's a, it's something that's really important and helpful.

One of the last things I want to share about was, you know, this is more, when we're talking about recruitment, retention, this is more towards prosecutors. You know, being a prosecutor isn't for everyone. But one of the big obstacles that we have is just the initial cost and sacrifice to obtain a law degree.

You know, we're talking about a cost anywhere between 100130150,000 for a Hawaii state resident, all the way up to over 200,000 for a non resident. And you know, those figures, they don't account for the additional student loan, that debt arising from obtaining an undergraduate degree.

So it's not unusual for meet up for, for our office to bring somebody in and they, they be in student loan debt of 250k, $300,000. You know, so that's why salaries are important, you know, to, to these, to these new attorneys. And one of the things that's that's important to know about, you know, being a prosecutor.

You know, given the transparency of the criminal justice system, but more importantly the media attention, prosecutors are subject to a lot of scrutiny. You know, they're in the newspaper people, they're in the, they're in the news, people read the court minutes in cases, they post it online.

There's a lot of talk on social media and that all that all results in the positions being difficult to, to. To fill. You know, Chair Elephante mentioned earlier the possibility of utilizing vacancy funding to increase pay rate.

And in his Q A with Director Lambert, I just wanted to share, you know, that's something that we did within our office. We utilized retention incentives and hiring incentives.

The, the, the part, you know, with the retention incentive, we were able to do that through a supplemental agreement with hgea and I, I looked at one of the, one of the examples that was said I think Chief Okimoto mentioned earlier with dispatchers. So dispatchers had a, had a supplemental agreement.

I look at, I was able to get a hold of that one. And that's how we put it together. We did it for our, our, our legal clerical staff. They're like the, the, the lower paid staff in our office. Very difficult to, to fill those positions. And it was, it was helpful.

So I encourage, you know, others to, to look at that as well. And then the last thing you know regarding the, the lawyer shortage. It's a lawyer shortage across our state. Okay. We have one law school, the Richardson School of Law. I'm a proud Richardson alumni.

You know, given the shortage of attorneys in our state, prioritizing admission of state residents will be very beneficial to, to our legal community. You know, furthermore, looking at Richardson's online JD program, you know, prioritizing the admission of neighbor islands residents to that program, that will be very helpful.

You know, I, I know a number of people from, from our island, some some of which work in, in my office and in non attorney positions who have been trying to get, you know, have been applying to, to Richardson and you know, they, they have children, they have careers, they want to get into that online program.

But it's so competitive and the frustrations have been shared is that, you know, there's a lot of people out of state that's being accepted into that program.

But you know, having a, using that as a vehicle to help us get new trained attorneys into our legal community who are vested in our community, you know, who call Hawaii home, I think that would be very beneficial. But I appreciate the opportunity to share with you guys, today.

I know I talked really, really fast, but I'm sure everybody really wants to finish this meeting. So model for your. For your attention and your opportunity to share. Hello.

Thank you, Prosecutor Waltjen. Really appreciate you being here. Members, questions for the prosecutor? Yes, Senator Rhoads.

Well, thanks for. Thanks for appearing. Appreciate it very much. I may have misunderstood you, but I think you said earlier on that you were concerned, you thought that the mentally ill accounted for a lot of violent crime.

Because the background for me is that I've been working on mental illness issues for quite some time and been criticized for my approach because I think that in certain cases, coercion is necessary. I mean, going to the state hospital is going to prison, and they can force you to take drugs. So, you know, it's not a.

But in certain cases, that's true. But. But I have never seen or read about a study that said that the mentally ill are more prone to violent crime than anybody else. Not to say that none of them are, but I was wondering, did you have a study that says mentally ill are more prone to violent crime?

I don't have data in specific, but just looking at the recent cases that we've had on our island and looking at the ones that have been through the system for a long time. So I'm looking at the ones that have, you know, there's been seven or four motions and cases have been continued. Those are the ones I'm.

I'm talking about situations where probably.

We're probably on the same page on that. But I just. I think it's. It's not. At least from. At least from what I've read and seen is most. Most people have schizophrenia just want to go off in a corner and be left alone. Unfortunately, that's not always true, but for the. For the vast majority of the time.

The other area where I'm a little uneasy is your statement that. There's A. Lot of restrictions on evidence. The rules of evidence are very tight, and we protect criminal defendants in Hawaii unnecessarily or too much. I think there's.

The technology exists today that we could probably entirely eliminate street kinds of crimes, probably almost all kinds of crimes, with the surveillance methods that are available. You can have a camera and a microphone in everybody's bedroom and everybody's bathroom. And some countries do this.

The People's Republic of China, they give you a citizenship score if you don't comply with what they view as the social norm. You can be dinged for on your citizenship score, not be eligible for as good a job. I mean, we probably can eliminate crime completely if we're willing to be a police state.

I'm not willing to be. I'm not willing to be part of a police state. In fact, the fact that purported Ayes agents are going around with masks on, grabbing people off the street and refusing to identify themselves makes me very uncomfortable, too.

And I have to say, I've never seen, in my 29 years in Hawaii, I've never seen an HPD officer with a mask on. Maybe the SWAT guys do. But basically, when you interact with the police, you know who you're interacting with.

So, you know, my opinion is there's a line somewhere, and I'm not comfortable, especially in the current environment, getting rid of our protections for, for criminal, for people who have been accused of crimes. So I don't know. I understand what you're saying, but I don't know. You know, where do you want to draw the line?

I guess that's. What would you get rid of in terms of protections that everybody could live with?

I guess it would depend. My comment was more in line with what Deputy Attorney General put. Was talking about, you know, with the privacy concerns, with obtaining search warrants and things of that nature. You know, those types of investigative barriers that will sometimes create additional time frame restrictions to a ongoing criminal investigation.

You know, and that, that's what I was talking about.

Okay.

Not, not along the lines of immigration. But it's interesting that you mentioned, you know, about Ayes. You know, we had a recent discussion among our Third Circuit bench bar.

We have, we meet regularly and our chief judge had, had discussed about, you know, about Ayes and, you know, concerns that were previously mentioned about whether or not they were conducting operations at the courthouse.

And what I, I was, it was, it was interesting to hear her remarks were, you know, that the judicial judiciary stance is that Ayes has legal authority to conduct on operations there at the courthouse, and there's nothing that they, that they can, that the judiciary can, can do about it to inhibit that.

But what she actually had shared was that, you know, they had reached out to, to Ayes, and Ayes had, had, had agreed that they'd provide notice if they were to conduct any operations.

And I think it's been like, very few and far in between where they've actually made an arrest at the courthouse and they've actually provided notice to the, to the, to the state. So, but I know that's not the situation you're talking, you're talking about something that's happening in the community in different, in neighborhoods.

One last. So, yeah, I'm an attorney, too, and, well, I haven't practiced in forever, but I didn't pay off my law school loans until I was about 55. So I totally understand the problem there. I don't.

You know, 30 years ago when I got out of law school, I would have been surprised that anybody would have said that we have a lawyer shortage, but I think that's actually true at this point. And I do support trying to.

There are certain positions that you really need a lawyer, and it is an expensive Proposition to get into that game. So, you know, maybe we need to be looking at stuff like we have for doctors, which are, in my view, are more important than lawyers. But, you know, maybe I'm selling out my profession.

In most situations, I'd rather have access to a doctor than a lawyer. But maybe we need to start looking at like we've done on the medical side for loan forgiveness for people who are willing to take public sector law jobs. Thanks, Chair. Thanks for my indulgence.

You're welcome.

I don't have any questions. Just want to thank you for being here, Prosecutor Waldron. Really appreciate your time and your insights. For that, I do have a follow up for HPD.

Before we conclude, if HPD doesn't mind the Honolulu Police Department, just to be clear and distinctive, not Hawaii County, I want to talk about sort of the crime lab. So you're. And first of all, you know, we do appreciate the Honolulu Police Department for taking in requests for service from all counties, including the state.

What, what specifically does your crime lab analyze? Like certain amount of cases. DNA, all types.

All types. Trace. All types of trace evidence, DNA, firearms. I want to say if we don't have the capacity, then we do outsource some things. So you do. Okay.

And so would having a state crime lab help? And how would that work with. With you folks? Because I would assume your crime lab is 100, funded by the county. Yes.

So I don't know about funding, sir. I don't have that information, so I'd rather not comment. But if you're asking if a state crime lab would help to alleviate some of the, I guess, tasks or things, yes, it would. My, our concern would, and we've discussed this before, is with staffing, right?

We might see staff from our lab now move to a state lab, and then we're still in the same crisis of finding qualified individuals to meet those standards that are required for that types of positions that we're trying to Fund.

And Chief, just one follow up to that is, is there like an average time is there, like a big delay when you get a request and coming up with a result?

I would say that there is specified time frames for, say, processing of DNA. And because we're Kalea certified or certified lab, we would have to have a second review. So there there's standard timelines that are in place, but we do prioritize cases as they come in, with that being said. Right. Which helps with leading to arrests, correct?

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Follow ups to that. Okay. If not. Chief, thank you for being here. I just want to thank personally my Committee Clerk Taylor and staff, and all those who made this meeting possible today, and to all of you and for. For the agencies, for your participation today.

There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned.