Directs the executive branch to prepare preliminary design and request for proposals for the design, development, and operation of a correctional facility on an appropriate and economically feasible site. (HD1)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that the State can no longer afford to postpone the construction of correctional facilities. As overcrowding continues, the State is placed in a vulnerable position of being subject to charges of civil rights violations and to security risks.

Since 1995, the department of public safety has been transporting prisoners to facilities in Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, Minnesota, Arizona, and Tennessee. Presently, there are approximately one thousand six hundred Hawaii inmates imprisoned in mainland prisons. The administration is presently considering the transfer of an additional five hundred twenty-six more inmates to be sent to mainland facilities. Although this is a temporary solution until adequate facilities are built, the State cannot afford to transport inmates to mainland facilities indefinitely.

Out-of-state placements cost approximately $24,400,000 per year, or $56 per prisoner per day for care, custody, transportation, inmate compensation, and health care. During this session, the administration is requesting an additional $10,000,000 to transfer and house the additional prisoners in mainland facilities.

Further, this arrangement has not been problem-free. For example, at the mainland facilities, there have been allegations of sexual assault of female prisoners, denial of timely medical treatment, and civil rights violations. Further, the lack of close-by family support that is an integral part of any successful re-entry into local society hinders rehabilitation. It has been stated that the rate of recidivism of mainland housed prisoners committing subsequent crimes is ninety per cent, compared to a rate of recidivism of forty-seven to fifty-seven per cent for those imprisoned here.

The legislature further finds that a great majority of all prisoners incarcerated by the State have committed crimes relating to drug and substance-abuse laws or engaged in other crimes to support existing drug and substance-abuse habits. Simple incarceration without treatment will only lead to recidivism and magnify the problem rather than lead to a reduction of the scourge of drug and substance abuse.

Accordingly, the legislature finds that it is in the public interest that a new correctional facility emphasizing programs that will address, as a priority, the provision of treatment programs for substance-abuse and mental health treatment be designed and built. This facility should be sized to house one thousand to one thousand two hundred inmates in intensive drug- and substance-abuse and other mental health treatment.

The purpose of this Act is to direct the executive branch to immediately initiate the planning and design process to develop a correctional treatment facility to house one thousand to one thousand two hundred inmates on an appropriate and economically feasible site, on public or private lands.

SECTION 2. (a) Within ninety days of the effective date of this Act, the director of public safety shall enter into a contract with a certified or accredited correctional design professional for the planning and preliminary design for a one thousand to one thousand two hundred bed correctional treatment facility. The design professional shall be selected pursuant to section 103D-304; provided that in order to expedite the selection and contracting of a design professional, the review committee designated pursuant to subsection 103D-304(c) and the selection committee designated pursuant to subsection 103D-304(d) may consist of the same qualified persons and the selection and contract negotiation may be done in accordance with subsection 103D-304(j) regardless of the contract price. The correctional treatment facility shall be a secure correctional facility designed to provide intensive in-house rehabilitation programs for the treatment of chemical dependency and abuse and other mental health problems.

(b) The correctional treatment facility shall be designed to be operated by the State or a private operator with the ability to provide a total continuum of programs addressing education, prevention, and treatment, directed at achieving the prevention of drug and substance abuse and the resolution of other mental health problems. If a private operator is to be selected, it shall have prior successful experience in managing facilities accredited by the American Correctional Association and the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

(c) By February 1, 2006, the director of public safety shall report to the legislature, including in the report the following:

SECTION 3. This Act shall not be construed to prohibit the governor from negotiating or contracting with any person for the development of other in-state correctional facilities pursuant to sections 353-16.35 and 353-16.36, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

SECTION 4. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $ , or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2005-2006, for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 5. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of public safety for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2005.