STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2442

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2147

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2147 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish an alternative incarceration pilot program, which will use electronic monitoring for selected persons to be released into the community in lieu of incarceration.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from Ho‘omana Pono, LLC; Community Alliance on Prisons; and six individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Public Safety, Judiciary, and Hawaii Paroling Authority.

     Your Committees find that prison overcrowding is a chronic problem in Hawaii.  With the exception of inmates serving mandatory sentences, many persons could be released from incarceration into the community if they are required to wear electronic monitoring devices.  Additionally, many nonviolent offenders could be sentenced to probation if electronic monitoring programs were expanded.  The cost to monitor a person is much less than the cost required for incarceration, and existing law permits the use of electronic monitoring in intermediate sentencing as an alternative to incarceration.  If remote monitoring is expanded, the overcrowding of Hawaii's correctional facilities could be mitigated.  Additionally, your Committees find that global positioning system monitoring devices offer significant cost benefits over traditional electronic monitoring devices.

     Your Committees have therefore amended this measure by:

(1)  Changing the proposed pilot program to use global positioning system monitoring devices instead of electronic monitoring devices; and

(2)  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 Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2147, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2147, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

________________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair