Appropriates funds to hire monitors for out-of-state correctional facilities housing Hawaii inmates.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. Approximately eighteen hundred Hawaii inmates are housed at out-of-state correctional facilities each year at a cost of $36,000,000. That is nearly half of the Hawaii prison population. The department of public safety is proposing to send another seven hundred inmates to mainland facilities at an additional cost of $12,000,000.

The recent death of a Hawaii inmate at a Kentucky prison emphasizes the need to properly monitor conditions at mainland facilities and to provide a readily accessible channel for inmates to communicate their complaints directly to Hawaii prison officials.

The purpose of this Act is to appropriate moneys to hire monitors for out-of-state correctional facilities housing Hawaii inmates.

SECTION 2. 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 2006-2007, to hire monitors for out-of-state correctional facilities that house Hawaii inmates.

SECTION 3. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of public safety for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2006.