STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2850

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2524

       S.D. 2

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2524, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PRISONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to require and appropriate funds for the creation of separate forensic treatment facilities for the mentally ill in all community correctional centers.

     This measure would also require appropriate medical staffing for each facility and ban the practice of placing mentally ill persons either in solitary confinement or in the general correctional population.

     Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Public Safety and the Community Alliance on Prisons.

     Upon further consideration, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1)  Replacing the statutory amendments proposed by the measure with language requiring the Department of Public Safety to conduct a study on the feasibility of doing what the bill originally would have required;

(2)  Creating an advisory committee to assist the Department of Public Safety in conducting the feasibility study;

(3)  Requiring the Department of Public Safety to report the findings and recommendations of the feasibility study to the Legislature no later then twenty days prior to the regular legislative session of 2009;

(4)  Changing the purpose of the appropriation to the performance of the feasibility study; and

(5)  Making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2524, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2524, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair