Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 634 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate $100,000 in both fiscal years 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 to hire two drug treatment counselors to provide treatment for drug-related women offenders on Maui.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, County of Maui; the Maui County Council; the Community Alliance on Prisons; Government Efficiency Teams, Inc.; the Mayor, County of Maui; the ACLU; the program director and a planner and researcher from Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc.; A Woman's Voice International; Dr. Duke Bainum; and twenty-five inmates incarcerated on Maui, and nineteen concerned citizens of Maui. The Department of Human Services supported the bill with reservations and suggested amendments. The Department of Public Safety did not have a position on the bill. The Office of the Public Defender supported the bill but voiced concerns.

Your Committee finds that women are the fastest growing inmate population on Maui. More than eleven percent of births on Maui are drug affected. Of these mothers, eighty percent use alcohol, sixty percent use marijuana, thirty percent use cocaine, and twenty-three percent use crystal-methamphetamine. Unfortunately, your Committee finds that the Maui Drug Court program is unable to treat women offenders locally because the program lacks a women's dormitory. Currently, there are fifty-five women incarcerated on Maui. Of those fifty-five, forty-four qualify for drug court, although there is funding for only six women to go to the mainland for treatment.

Your Committee further finds that Maui county has requested budget funds to be used to renovate an existing county structure for use as a women's dormitory to facilitate a women's drug court on Maui. This bill's appropriations will provide the treatment counselors necessary to staff the drug court program.

Your Committee amended the bill by adding clarifying language proposed by the Department of Human Services, and a technical nonsubstantive amendment for clarity and style. The amendments include:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 634, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 634, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.