STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2566

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2887

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Public Safety and Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2887 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO NATIVE HAWAIIANS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to require the Offender Reentry Legislative Oversight Committee to establish a work group to conduct a study and convene public hearings to determine the factors that contribute to the over-representation of native Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians in the State's prisons and jails.

     Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Community Alliance on Prisons, the Drug Policy Forum of Hawai‘i, and one individual citizen.  Testimony in opposition of this measure was submitted by the Department of Public Safety.

     Your Committees find that it is crucial to evaluate and analyze the Department of Public Safety's operations and administration of their programs and services.  Further, most studies on ethnic and racial disparities in prisons also gather data on the number of arrests and length of sentences for various ethnic origins and racial classes.  Knowing the factors that contribute to those disparities would likely assist the Department of Public Safety in alleviating those disparities in the prisons and jails in Hawaii.

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Requiring the work group to gather data on the arrests and sentences of native Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purpose of clarity.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety and Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2887, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2887, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety and Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________ JILL TOKUDA, Chair

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair