Senate Standing Committee on Hawaiian Affairs

Good afternoon. We are, continuing the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs and Committee on Hawaiian Affairs informational briefing, which started on Monday, April 13.

We are in Conference Room 016, and we are continuing a previous informational briefing with Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that was held on April 13, 2026.

We'd like to invite Chair I mean, Director Johnson and his team to come forward and to join us at the table for 65members of the public.

We had a a recess during our earlier info briefing, and so we provided the department with some written questions that we were not able to pose during the last informational briefing.

And we asked them to, provide a brief overview of some of the department's responses to those questions. Following that today, we thought it would also be helpful if the, Oversight Commission administrator also did a real short overview of their March 2026 report. So thank you so much, Director.

Okay. So good afternoon, Chair Richards and Chair Fukunaga. I'm Tommy Johnson, Director of Department of Corrections Rehabilitation. We did receive the questions yesterday afternoon. However, we're still working on gathering most of the information you asked for.

So we will have it free for money because it's quite extensive. It's gonna be about 10 pages plus some attachments. Okay. Okay. Alright.

I apologize. We're working on we're trying to work on this, and we're trying to work on a a short notice request we received from WAM too about the physician deletions and impact statements they're asking for.

Okay. Do you have sort of any overview question I mean, responses that you can provide, you know, generally, I mean, as far as some of the programs and, you know, what you envision for the new facilities.

Okay. So what I what I envision for the new facility versus what we have now is actually rehabilitative and program space that we lack because of the age and the infrastructure at the current OCCC.

In the design, which you'll see, hopefully, in some of the photos we draw tomorrow, you'll see that there's program space on every module. So the programs will go to the individuals. There's also recreational space on every module.

We envision spaces green spaces within the facility and outside the facility, but we also envision artwork and we envision a more holistic approach to the those in our custody and care whether they're with us for 4 days or 200 days.

The challenge for us, to be honest with you, will be, one, having the providers come in and provide the services on a short period of time.

So we'll try to provide as many service impactful services as possible depending on how long the person is with us. And those that we can't finish, we hope to have referral services and linkages to outside vendors.

I indicated yesterday that we're thankful that the legislature appropriated $4,000,000 for us last year specifically for our reentry efforts, and we started doing some of the contracts for that now.

So that's gonna help us. And once we flush that out, I think you'll get a better idea of our reentry efforts. With respect to some of the questions here, I can go down the list and answer some of the questions verbally and then back it up in writing and with the attachments. K? K.

So for number three, where will programs be held? So, again, there'll be program space on the modules themselves. There'll also be 600 of the beds with what we call indirect supervision, which means you won't need a lot of corrections officers, but you will have the program space there.

We'll actually be some of the other space will be cell and bed space for those folks who initially come in who are at a higher classification level, but they will also still receive services.

We will have the a a real infirmary Which OCCC currently lacks now that can take care of the inmates that come in our custody.

Because we get a lot of folks who are in bad shape when they come in. Some of them we have to take to the emergency room almost immediately. Unfortunately, because of the lifestyle, their organs are mostly ten years older than their chronological age.

So they have a lot of issues with because of drug use, malnutrition, alcoholism, liver, kidney, lung issues, bone density issues, believe it or not. And so the infirmary will also be staffed 24/7.

We do have a staffing plan. We have a staffing plan for the facility, and we can provide that to you. And that will go over all classes of work, and I can include that in the in the response.

Okay.

But I wanna make it clear since the the design and planning is not complete, it's preliminary. So that may change depending on the size of the facility.

K? K. So I'll go down the list a little bit more. Okay. So sustaining a culture of collaboration and community.

Okay.

So the new jail project, we envision working with we did contact OHA twice to work with them. Unfortunately, OHA indicated to us that they would only be willing to work with inmates of Hawaiian ancestry.

And so we're we'll still continue to try to work with them, but by law, we cannot exclude inmates from programs. So that's gonna be a challenge for us. We're working with a organization on the Big Island.

Tana, what's the name of that organization in The Big Island? Oh, that's it. Hale Hopa Kelley. They're helping us with the Makahiki on the Big Island, and they wanna help us here as well with those being cultural. So we'll be working with them as well and other Hawaiian groups.

I think what's gonna help us is in one of the second current resolutions today, it called for the oversight commission to put together a group advisory panel made up of people who have justice involved, former corrections officers, people in the Hawaiian community.

I think that group, to be honest with you, will be the most informative to us to help us.

There's another group on the Big Island, GoingHhome Hawaii. Are you familiar with that group?

Yes. We work with them quite a bit.

Okay. Yeah. Les Estrella. Yep. That county, so I worked with them quite a bit. And so that that was another group that I know. Well, I just I like what Les was doing and and what they're working on.

So We actually put up a structure at Halenani, which is the Going Home Hawaii building we put up, and they provide services and programs there. Les, at one time, also provided provided housing for us in Kona. And I think he bid on the recent contract part of the $4,000,000.

And so I think he's gonna start it up again providing housing for us in the Kona area because it's really needed. Okay.

I think he's retiring, though, if he didn't already retire.

Oh, for real?

Yeah. That's what he let us know. He was trying to get solid and come take his place, trying to steal it from us. Our Deputy Director for rehabilitation. Okay.

Because I have plans for Les. Okay. K. He doesn't know about them yet.

Fair enough. Okay. So what percentage of jail population you anticipate will be homeless? I wanna make it clear, when we provide the responses, it's gonna be projections based on verbal information we receive from the from the offenders. A lot of offenders don't want us to know their address.

They don't want us to know they're living with a relative. So sometimes they won't provide us with a with a forwarding address or or an address where they supposedly came from before they came to us.

So I just wanted to let you know that the information will be verbal, and it may not be accurate because they may not want us to know certain information about where they stay or who they're staying with. K? Will we have serious and persistent mental illness?

Oh, oh, so excuse this. We'll have serious and persistent mental illness. That's where the we can't we don't know the amount of people that come in and have mental illness until we do the assessments.

But I can tell you this, a vast majority of the people come into the system have some issue with either mental health or substance use disorder. And and sometimes it's a combination of both.

And, unfortunately, the drugs tend to adversely affect the medications that they're taking for their mental health illness, and that's a challenge for us. But, but we will provide the numbers. We'll have substance abuse.

We'll provide those numbers of substance use disorder. And then say what percent will be misdemeanors?

We'll have we'll get that from our weekly population report that's posted online. So it'd be more like an average Okay. Number. K? How does DCR plan to care for these people through the infirmary, through the substance abuse treatment that we can provide to them that they hear the longest?

I think the key for us is because they're gonna be with us for short and varying period of time because it's such a transient population. The key for us is gonna be to do accurate assessments when they first come in and the linkages to the community when they get out.

Because we might have them for ten days or fifteen days or two months. So that warm handoff, which the $4,000,000 will help us with, will help us do the integrated case management and will help us do that community partnering.

So, ideally, we wanna have contracts with outside vendors like Queens that come into the facility, establish a relationship, work with the case managers.

So when the inmates work out when they get out, where they've released on supervised release, so they finished their thirty day sentence, then they then have a warm release off to the case managers that already know that's already been working with them. K?

Number five, how is the planning and design team determine the mission values and function identity? That will be part of the responses we provide on Monday because that's fairly detailed.

Did community stakeholders partner participate in the development of the mission, vision, values, statement of OCCC?

I think as part of the and Cathy or Shari, the best one to answer this. As part of the her outreach, she obtained a lot of information. They did a lot of interviews. That information that then came back to us, and we provided it to our consultants and DAGs.

And I'm sure we've read some of those comments into that, but I'll provide an answer a solid answer in our response.

Okay. Right? Number seven, one of the design principles of the breaking cycle study is to connect incarcerated, men to the aina. The only plan we have there is to have the Hawaiian groups come in, but also to to provide cultural programs.

But also, remember yesterday, I mentioned that we're gonna have native Hawaiian vegetation. And so we intend to have the the population there teach them how to care for the vegetation and to teach them the skills they need to do that.

And not just in the green space you see in the front of the facility, you saw off to the right, this is what this this is like a a what we call a rally point if there's an emergency where we we evacuate people to, to do something with that as well, that space.

Not all of it, but some something where they're caring for the plants, native Hawaiian plants, and a garden out there as well. There's also gonna be green space inside the facility, and you'll see that, I think, in the photos tomorrow.

I think the the reason that the study was kind of fascinating in one sense was it talked about Halawa Valley being a site where they have a series of streams that in a part of it. I think Aiea Stream or Halawa Stream, they also have been affected by the Red Hill spills and the fuel in the last five years.

The area that I think the final site is on was once a Lo'ikalo. And so we assume that as part of this exercise that you would be looking for ways particularly if there's a large percentage of your population that is native Hawaiian to incorporate restorative healing practices.

And in many respects, you know, it seems as though if there were locations that were used in that manner in the past where you could also grow kalo and other, canoe plants, etcetera, that would be a very powerful, healing type of practice.

So making use of that particular location was what made a lot of sense to me because I think when we have seen communities being actively involved in helping to develop shared visions or long term uses, you have much better working relationships.

And it kind of builds a community for those, you know, people who will be there, even though they're gonna be there for a short while.

Yeah. I agree. Okay. Number eight was one of the recommendations of breaking cycle studies was for the new jail to have a public health perspective. Does the DCR plan team plan to agree to the sound recommendation?

We we agree with all of the sound recommendations, but as Kathy mentioned earlier yesterday, some of the recommendations are more appropriate for jail setting and a prison setting, and some of the recommendations are more appropriate for system wide change.

And, Phil, to be honest with you, we do need system wide change, but we will require resources for that. And so we have been working, partnering with the Department of Health, and that will continue to work we will continue to work with Department of Health and continue to work with native

Hawaiian practitioners as well to come into the facility, to help and to hopefully partner with DOH and with us to provide other types of healing other than just medical healing. Right? So we do plan to do that.

And, again, I believe that the group that Oversight Commission would be working with would be very informative to us for that because a lot of them are involved in native Hawaiian culture and and their practitioners, and they can also connect us with other groups that are willing to come in.

Part of the problem we ran into when we first came to the department as a leadership team was it was really siloed off siloed off.

And that was because of the the leadership style of different previous directors. And so we're trying to break those silos down. I'm not gonna lie.

It is tough. But we're gonna keep trying. We've got some people to see the light and say, okay. We're gonna take this journey with you, Tommy. Other people on the fence and some people that are just obstinate.

Our job is to negate the negative effect the those people have on the overall mission, get those people on the fence to come our way, and we move forward together. K.

Before number nine, reentry, it is an important part of the correctional process, and many of the individuals who reenter who enter are homeless. Does DCR have a plan to include determining which inmates are in fact homeless?

All we could do is ask them, but we can look at their history to see, to determine if they were houseless before.

And if they're known to IHS or Waikiki Health Center, we work closely with them, then we can ask them to come in to help us because they've already established a relationship. They may not trust the folks in a correctional setting, but they will trust people that they had a relationship before.

So we do intend to do that. I think the 1115 waiver, if the process is completed sooner than later, I think that's gonna help a lot of these folks from being homeless when they get out and plug them into services.

We already have a pilot project with DHS at two different facilities dealing with stat benefits before they get out, and so we hope to expand that.

And right now, we're working with DHS on 1115 waiver and getting inmates signed up within sixty days of their release dates for those that we know are getting out. And those would be the ones that have a determinate release date that are sentenced misdemeanors and are maxing out or if a role

grants them parole on a chair to set date. So we will be working with them on that issue. For number 10, native Hawaiians continue to be overrepresented in the in the incarcerated population.

What are the plans to incorporate native Hawaiian values, cultural I mentioned that earlier.

We really wanna work with the native Hawaiian groups. We do have some restrictions with respect to what type of items can be brought into the facility, but we will try to work with them.

Our concern is when ACLs don't show up for work, and I wanna make this clear, we have some dedicated staff, but we have some that also abuse, family medical leave, act, and sick leave.

When ACLs don't show up for work and we can't get someone to come in for overtime, then we have to close certain posts. So the posts are red posts and black posts.

So the red posts are those that are essential, medical tower, perimeter, transportation, food service, control stations. The posts that are we consider black posts are not essential, but are important are the rovers who are relievers, are the program folks who run visitation, education, substance

abuse treatment, because we have to have a corrections officer in or near those areas. So I think we're we're working with as I mentioned yesterday, we're working with UPW on a new ACO attendance plan program.

So we're hoping that we can get that in place fairly soon. We've been negotiating with them since last February of last year.

We're close. And so we're hoping that will help. Because if we can get the ACOs to come to work, we can run the programs. We can run the programs, then we get the inmates prepared for parole on time so nobody's in past their tentative parole date. Gotcha.

For number 11, are any native Hawaiian practitioners working with the planning team to provide native Hawaiian framework. At present, it was just the outreach that we had, the UHCDC do. In hindsight, we should be working with a native Hawaiian group.

And if if you have one that you recommend or that you know of, because we did approach OHA, we would put them in contact with DAGS and our consultants and have them look at what we're doing.

And and the group that the the oversight commission will be putting together will also be informative for us for that.

They don't have to be statewide. They can be in each county different.

Right. Because we want as many just like we did with the UACDC outreach, we wanna cast the widest net possible. Right. So if groups on a particular island can only work with us on that island, that's fine. We just wanna work with them.

Okay. So for number, 12, the final population forecast from the Pulitzer, Bogart 2021, it shows a reduction in population. That's based on the demographics of what the population of Hawaii is gonna be versus what the experience is of the percentage of the population that involved in the criminal justice system.

And of that, the smaller percentage that actually goes to prison. There are about 13,000 people on probation.

We only have about 3,700 in our prison and jails, so they based it they based it on that in part, and what laws are coming into effect and what laws may be sunshined.

So it's a good idea to every three years or so, two to three years, just to do another population projection because of the change in demographic. Because because you could have more people staying in Hawaii versus more people leaving Hawaii.

You can have changes in laws that affect misdemeanants, sentenced felons, or repeat offenders. So we would be willing to look at this for sure and because we wanna take we wanna have the most accurate number possible.

And I wanna make it clear that when people say the the department's building a super jail, no. We're building a we're asking for a thousand bed facility to accommodate the 900 plus people we currently have in our custody and care. We're just trying to get people off the floor.

WCCC was designed for 628. We have never went below about 890 in the last decade.

In fact, I have I'll include with our response even though it's not requested. We went back to 2006, and I'll show you the population of OCCC every year from 2006 to 2025. And you'll see where where it just continually went up and went down, but it's never going down below 800 or so. K? K?

That's all I have for now, but we will provide the written response very detailed by Monday.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Questions?

Yep. You you're talking about the a thousand beds. Are you looking at the inmates that we have on the Mainland and bringing them home? Because I know in all the reading, I read somewhere where that was a question, and are we gonna house them here as opposed to the Mainland?

Is that something in your long term plan?

It isn't our long term plan, but we would need an a new medium security prison. The jail and the prison population is different.

Right.

The jail population, like OCCC, would hold pretrial felons, pretrial and sentence misdemeanants, petty misdemeanants, folks who are pending extradition that were that were arrested here that have a outstanding warrant somewhere else.

It's a very low number, less than 10 at any given time, and short term parole and probation violators. Whereas the prisons will only hold sentenced felons.

Okay. So long term is specifically focusing on OCCC right now.

For now, for OCCC because our jails are overcrowded. But at some point, we need to look at the prison population. And I think our when we finished the classification study, we're doing the the new instrument, the amended instrument with the current instrument to try to

determine the validity of the new instrument. If that determines we're keeping people at a higher level longer, I think that'll help us move people through the system faster.

And we do have some internal challenges with respect to artificial barriers some of our own staff have put up to that slow inmate progression. I've talked to Kristen Johnson about some of them yesterday, and she's aware of and so if she provides a presentation,

I think she can go over some of those issues with you. Okay.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Question. Sure.

You have in here, it's just reading through this complaint numbers. But I didn't see it tied into a metric. Is that an annual complaint, or is that over a period of time?

That's only the if complaints are normally annually Okay. And I can tell you I'm embarrassed to say this, but we have the vast majority of complaints and complaints that are sustained. We have a lot of work to do. A lot.

Well, it's better to acknowledge it rather than pretend it's not there. That is correct. K. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, director. And for some of the answers to those questions, we also invited, the oversight coordinator, Kristen Johnson, to join us, to actually speak to some of the points covered in that, March 2026 report.

I guess I jumped the gun. Sorry.

No. I'm glad you're interested. Hello chairs. My name is Kristen Johnson. I'm the oversight coordinator with the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission.

I prepared a very brief PowerPoint presentation for you today. Most of it's actually gonna focus on one section of our monthly report, but very briefly, I'll kind of give you a rundown of what our monthly report includes.

So we always report on deaths in custody every month. We've been doing that since 2022. We cover, different important tours or events that we have attended, usually graduations or things that are exciting going on in the department.

We also report this is actually the first time that we've been reporting on this, but we report complaints that we've received. So we're very excited about that. We wouldn't have been able to do that without getting funding for our case management system. So we're excited to continue on with that.

But today, I'm actually gonna focus on our findings on lack of movement throughout the prison system.

And so we've been talking a lot about OCCC, but I'm gonna kinda shift the conversation a little bit to cover what you're referring to a little bit earlier. Next slide, please. So this is just a little bit about us. We're a five member commission and staff, and we're, mandated to oversee the state's correction

system. We have jurisdiction over investigating complaints at all correctional facilities, and we're actually mandated to help facilitate a correctional system transition to a rehabilitative and therapeutic model.

So that's really where we focus a lot of our work. Next slide. Very briefly, I just wanted to cover, because I know this can get super confusing when looking at the whole correction system and especially when we have a unified system, which is pretty unique.

But there are very big differences between jails and prisons. Jails, it's usually people going through their trial process, and so they're considered pretrial individuals, whether it be pretrial felon or pretrial misdemeanor, or it's folks who are sentenced to one year.

And then prison are folks who are sentenced to more than one year, and so sentenced felony or sometimes parole violators. So kind of like the longer term folks. Next slide, please. This is just a list of our jails, prisons, and also our one hybrid facility, which is our women's facility, and it just kind of gives

you a breakdown of how many individuals we have, at each correctional facility. These numbers are from January, so bear with me on that.

But, as of January, we had, over 1,500 in our jail population and then, just over 1,800 in our prison population. Next slide. And then this is just a visual. I love visuals. I think they're helpful.

And so this is just so you can kinda see exactly where jails and prisons are located. And then you'll notice on the bottom right there, we also have a correctional facility in Arizona, which we'll we'll briefly touch on. Okay. So now we get to get into the fun stuff.

So now we're gonna talk about system movement. So next slide. So before we can really jump into system movement, we do have to understand the classification system a little bit.

So DCR, the way that their classification system is currently structured, there's five different classes and so you have maximum custody, which is the highest level. These are people who are very violent or have a history of violence. These are people who typically have to be isolated.

You have close custody, usually people who are serving longer sentences, and then you have medium custody. And so again, all three of these are kind of reserved for longer term stays at like a medium or higher facility.

The next slide, you have minimum custody and community custody. So minimum custody is reserved for people who really close low risk. There are people who aren't causing trouble in the correctional facilities.

They've kind of earned the right for more movement. Community custody is the lowest designation that you can have, and those are folks who typically are put in our furlough centers that we have in each of the jails.

And I just wanted to note that DCR policy, does state that the goal is to place their inmates in the least restrictive environment using varying degrees of security to promote corrections and rehabilitation and opportunities for integration.

So an individual's classification kind of declares where they can physically be housed. And so these are our correctional facilities, not including the women's facility.

We're gonna kinda leave that out of the conversation for now. But our cell based facilities are really Halawa and Saguaro. And so they're the ones who hold the maximum custody, the close custody, and the medium custody folks.

Then you have our minimum facilities, more open air, like dorm facilities, and they hold minimum custody and also sometimes community custody if those folks aren't quite, ready to go to furlough yet. And that's Waiawa and Kulani.

So what the commission has pretty consistently found is that rehabilitative spaces, are being underutilized. And so as of March 30, 2026, we found that Waiawa currently has a 46% utilization. And that means that we have a 153 people there, but we have 334 beds.

Fulani has a 48% utilization where we have 77 people there, but we have 160 beds. And then on that same front, next slide please, we found that restrictive spaces are being overutilized.

And so at Halawa, we found that and again, this is of March 30. So at Halawa, we found that there are 176 minimum custody individuals who are housed in Halawa, and there are 58 minimum custody individuals who are housed at Saguaro.

So, again, that's a total of 234 minimum custody individuals who are housed in more restrictive settings. And the reason why this matters so much is because the bed space is there at the minimum facilities.

We have 264 minimum custody beds that are sitting open in less restrictive facilities.

And what I really wanna point out here is that the biggest difference between minimum and medium custody facilities, when you look at minimum custody, they're far less restrictive.

They focus on education, vocational training, substance abuse treatment, reentry preparation, they allow more movement and work opportunities and also pro social behavior, and they're really designed to help people prepare for a successful reentry back into the community.

Whereas medium and higher facilities really emphasize security and control, not necessarily rehabilitation.

They offer fewer programs and it's not uncommon for them to have wait lists for the programs that they do have. But also there's an increased likelihood that individuals either serve their entire sentence and so they're maxing out, which means that they're being released with no skills, education, treatment,

or really any planning. So we're really concerned about that. Next slide. So what can be done? So the commission, at least since 2022, has been highlighting these concerns. And on a monthly basis, we're gonna continue to report on the current numbers.

I know that this is something that director Johnson's taking seriously and has been working on, which is why I emphasize that this is all for March 30. I think that the numbers have even changed since then.

But in the interim, I really wanna note that it's it's imperative the department focuses on system movement throughout the entire prison system. If we move people out of Halawa to proper classification, it gives the facility more room to breathe.

It gives them more opportunity to separate individuals as they need. It also gives more room to bring people home.

And so if we have 200 beds open up at Halawa, that's 200 people that we can bring home from Saguaro, just as an example. We also would love for the department to really focus on the reasonings behind the lack of or delayed movement and focus on the solutions.

And so, you know, the department did send us kind of a list and a breakdown as to why individuals haven't moved.

But the commission's biggest concern is that you know, so as an example, if it's if it's over 50 people who are being held because they haven't been medically screened, it's the commission's question, well, why haven't they been screened? Like, what is the holdup?

What's taking the time? And so we really want the department to address not just the why, but how can we fix it? We do understand that not all minimums will be eligible in a minimum facility yet, and sometimes this could be based on them finishing could be based on them finishing programming

or, again, medical clearance or pending misconducts. But we still feel that leaving minimum custody facilities 50% and less underutilized while eligible individuals sit in higher level custody undermines rehabilitation, public safety, and responsible stewardship of state resources.

Because one thing that I did not mention is that, minimum custody facilities are also less expensive for the state. You need less security. You need less staff. You know, there's more movement.

You can have more people in housing units based on the dorm setting, and so it really does make a different cost wise. The last thing that we noted here, which D1irector Johnson did mention earlier is updating the classification system. And so, you know, the Director has been working with. UH?

Oh, she's working with

I'm in Shamadad. Shamadad.

Thank you.

The department's been working with University of Shamadad. I apologize on updating classification system. I know this has been a project that they've been working on for a couple of years, but they're finally coming to the end stages here.

And so we're really hopeful, that that'll align with putting people in more rehabilitative and therapeutic housing while also balancing security.

And again, if hypothetically, if the classification system is more strict, which the commission and the department agrees, we believe it is, then fixing that will create even more minimum custodies who should be eligible to move down.

So so we really just wanted to highlight, that's a probably the number one concern for the commission right now. We just wanna make sure that these facilities are being utilized as they should. We do not believe that there needs to be an additional prison built or created.

Now the new OCCC, yes. The commission believes that there needs to be a new OCCC for sure. But I think that there's a lot of work that can be done on the prison side. So thank you so much. Okay. Questions?

Okay.

Didn't want you to come and not come to the party. Right? So the data that you presented with the higher security inmates With the higher security being overutilized relative to transferring to lower. How long have we been keeping track of that data?

Yeah. Thanks for asking that. So we can the commission can definitely go back further, but the commission has been tracking at least since 2023. And so in our monthly reports, we have different charts we have for 2023, 2024, 2025, and then current 2026, just so you can kinda see.

And the question I'm setting you up to ask is have we seen a difference? And if not, why not? And you said, oh, we're waiting on on a medical evaluation order. Okay. I get it for the reasons.

One of my frustrations with government, and I realized I'm part of government, but my frustration with government is that we are really good at telling you how we can't get something done. So tell me how we can get something done, and why haven't we done it sooner?

And I don't wanna beat you up on that because that's not the intention. Identify the problem. Great.

How do we fix it?

Absolutely. So transparently, it it's actually gotten worse since 2023. The numbers of minimums who are not in minimum facilities has gone up. The number of empty beds that are sitting in our minimum facilities have gone up as well.

And so, you know, that's one of the reasons why the commission really wanted to highlight this issue because we don't believe that, you know, this is a year by year fluctuation.

Like, we believe that this is a sustained pattern that has to be broken. As far as solutions, I agree with you wholeheartedly. That was one of the reasons why we had asked the department, like, what are the reasons why people aren't moving? Like, what is the issue here?

And, again, frankly, I agree with you. I'm also somebody who I don't wanna hear excuses. I wanna hear the plan moving forward. I wanna know the strategy behind everything.

My understanding and the director would be able to speak to this better than me currently, but my understanding is that the director is looking at all the different reasons and variations as to why people haven't been moved, and he's addressing those with the words directly.

Aye, you know, I know that from the commission standpoint, we would have preferred this been done years ago as we've been breaking this up for years, but we at least appreciate that it's it seems to be happening now.

Is it happening? We're we're saying it's there, but is it happening? And borrowing from former mayor of Big Island Billy Canoy, it said, Ken, Ken, no Ken, no Ken, but no Ken, how Ken? Okay. So using his words, how do we accelerate this?

Because strictly, I can tell you from a financial standpoint, we pay x number of dollars per inmate in Arizona, and we have a fixed cost with our facilities here, whether we house a 100 or 200, relatively speaking. So it would actually cut down out of state expense and lower our cost per expense.

I'm a numbers guy, so that's why I think of things. So why don't we push it? And I'm I'm not asking you, director.

I how do we make the difference? Because then when we talk about recidivism and wanna reintegrate these inmates coming back into society. But if we're not paying attention to how to get them in there, they're gonna kill fight, and they're not gonna we're gonna lose them.

So I'm interested in this, and, Grant, this is my colleague's area of expertise. I'm here because of Hawaiian affairs, but, I mean, it's still people we're talking about.

So how do we fix it? Yeah. And I don't know who to ask that question, but I'm kind of intrigued that we have data. But then let's use data.

Right. And so that that was the one clarification that I wanted, to make is that our agency, we really oversee the department. And so our goal is to take their data, make it transparent, have conversations with legislators, different stake stakeholders, obviously, the department,

to really try to get an understanding of what's happening and what can happen moving forward. And so but as far as the actual movement, the actual operations, that is completely on the department. Right.

And so, I would definitely recommend those particular questions to be towards Director Johnson, but we will continue to report out on all the numbers that we have.

Well and I appreciate that data. And so the the question is gonna be the same. So how do we move the needle? Because that's ultimately what we wanna do. And strictly from the financial side, it's gonna save us money if we can do this.

So and we could use saving some money someplace so it can apply to other places. So alright. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you, chair.

K. Maybe turning to some of the other areas in your report Chair Richards also asked about the complaints that the Oversight Commission is documenting. And I was kind of curious to see what the range of types of complaints are because you seem to have quite a few in the out of state placements.

And could you probably or just give us an overview of, what some of those complaints are and what are some of the pathways that the oversight commission is pursuing in order to, address them.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So like I said, this is this is the first time reporting on anything. So we're definitely gonna be reporting on more and more, including the types of complaints. But I can tell you from Saguaro, most of the complaints that we get that I would say there's two different areas.

One can a lot of times be related to sentencing. You have a lot of lifers and long termers up at Saguaro, and so a lot of folks are asking how can I get a commutation? How can I get a pardon? How can I get somebody to look at my case? My minimum hasn't been reduced by the parole board.

Can you please look at this? So a lot of it has to do with either pardons and commutations, which is obviously the governor's responsibility, or the parole side. But the other very large group of complaints that we get is related to a program there called SHIP That is it's a step down program for people

who are kind of acting out or causing issues. The commission has serious concerns about the program because of its restrictiveness. It's a bare minimum year, in restrictive housing.

And so you spend four months with 23 hour lockdown, four months of 22 hour lockdown, four months with 21 hour lockdown, and then four months of 20.

So it's a long time. And if you mess up within the program, you can be set back. And so there's people who have spent, it's not as common, but sometimes years in SHIP. And so we do get a lot of complaints about that.

As far as our investigative processes, we currently have two investigators. Our prison oversight specialist is our newest staff member. We were just able to bring them on three months ago. It's a brand new position, so we're very excited to have them.

And so, really, what we've done at this point is we finalized our complaint management system.

We have finalized all of our complaint processes and procedures, and now we're actually getting into the complaints. And so that's where you can see, you know, our our open I think we have our open complaints. Our open complaints versus our pending or our closed.

So we have about 115 open right now. So those are being actively investigated.

Our team goes into the facilities. We interview the people in custody. We interview staff. We we retrieve documents. We also have access to all of the department's information.

And so we even have, like, some systems that we can actually log into from our computers. And so we try to work through them as quickly as possible. But, basically, we're fact finders. Right? Like, we just wanna know this is what the individual is claiming.

Did that actually happen? And unfortunately, with a lot of investigations and especially with us now, a lot of these investigations or a lot of these complaints, I should say, are very old. The commission was created in 2019, and we started getting letters immediately in 2019.

I wasn't hired until 2022. So we are already kind of behind.

We weren't able to hire investigators until this year. And so we're working on a huge backlog, but we're trying to work through it quickly. And the one thing I'll say about that is that the more we respond to people, the more people write to us because now they're getting they know that somebody's listening.

And so we are seeing our letters, our mailboxes fill a little quicker. But we're but we're really proud of the work, and so we're gonna continue to report out on the types of complaints and different data points.

Okay. I guess, the other area where there's a larger number of complaints, but it's much smaller volume is in relation to, OCCC versus HCCC, KCCC, MCCC. Any distinctions that you would draw at this point?

I mean Saguaro is kind of a unique situation, whereas some of these others, are there things we can fix now?

So with OCCC, one of the the very large complaints that we get are conditions of confinement. One of the big issues is that because the department has been, to my understanding, at least a little bit limited in how much overtime they can spend, they have to close a certain amount of posts

before they can approve overtime. When you're closing posts, I'm trying not to get too into the weeds here, but what ends up happening is that people spend more time in their cells. You don't have, they're called like rovers, and so you don't have those additional staff to kind of walk through and let people out.

And so a lot of the complaints that we get from OCCC are very specific to conditions of confinement. You know, I haven't had a shower in a week. I haven't been into law library in however long. I haven't been out of my cell in however long. So that's a big one from there.

For OCCC, it's kind of a mix of, facility conditions, which is not surprising to me, and also sometimes complaints directly about staff and how staff treats them.

HCCC is our only jail that's overcrowded right now. A lot of that is because of low level bills that are given. KCCC, MCCC, and OCCC are actually under capacity, which is amazing. It was not like that when I started, so it's good to see now.

Okay. Thank you. If there's no further questions, we wanna thank all of you for attending today. This has been really very helpful in conjunction with the earlier presentation. And the goal is really to work with the department and the oversight commission as well as the design center.

I think there's amazing possibilities that may exist with the new facilities and we're really very interested in seeing them become a model for rehabilitation. So thank you very much.

Before you get, well, can I ask one question? I'm not sure who I wanna ask this too. The complaints in Saguaro, if I'm saying it correctly, Is part of this maybe cultural, just differences of how we live in Hawaii versus how West Coast or Southwest or something? Is is that potentially part of it?

Yes. I think that can be a big part of it. I can speak from my own experience from working in different correction system systems. This correction system is so unique because of the culture. Staff actually genuinely care about people in custody.

That's not how it is on the Mainland. On the Mainland, it's very us versus them mentality, and not everybody. There's always great officers thrown in between, but for the most part, the culture is a huge difference. And so I think that when it comes to the SHIP program in particular,

the way that staff treat those individuals is a huge concern of our people in custody.

Well and because I was thinking what you're trying to do is you're trying to break somebody in doing that by confining. And if you slip up, you can get reset back to zero. And that may work in some cultures, but I know it won't work in every culture.

And and I'm not sure that maybe that's the right thing for us, which comes back to, can we move people quicker if we have the capacity to move them long term and then save money, but also long term getting people back into society and productive. So okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Thank you all very much. We are adjourned.