STAND. COM. REP. NO. 280

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 219

       S.D. 1

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Health and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 219 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CORRECTIONS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to prohibit physically restraining inmates who are pregnant or in postpartum recovery, unless extraordinary circumstances exist, in order to allow these inmates to give birth or recover from giving birth under safe and humane conditions.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawai‘i Women's Coalition.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Public Safety.

     Your Committees find that the use of restraints on an inmate who is pregnant or in postpartum recovery may jeopardize the health and safety of the inmate or the inmate's unborn child.  Your Committees further find that this measure balances the concerns of an inmate or inmate's child's health and public safety by protecting pregnant inmates during labor and delivery of a child and inmates in postpartum recovery, while allowing for circumstances under which corrections officers may use restraints to prevent an inmate's escape or injury.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency. 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 219, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 219, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs,

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________ JOSH GREEN, M.D., Chair