The Hawaii County Council and a state oversight commission agree that the Hawaii Community Correctional Center should be moved to a different location.
Hilo Councilman Aaron Chung presented at Wednesday’s meeting of the Government Operations, Relations and Economic Development Committee a resolution calling for the Hilo jail to be moved to a location better suited to house inmates.
The resolution, Chung said, is in part a reaction to a September report by the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission that highlighted extreme overcrowding and other poor conditions in the jail, but also to its location in the middle of a residential area very close to Hilo High and Intermediate schools.
“(HCCC) started as an 11-bed jail,” Chung said. “This is where you put Otis the drunk over there to sleep it off and go back into the community. Since that time, it’s far different now. Hundreds of beds, and we’re still above capacity.”
Christin Johnson, oversight coordinator with the commission and co-author of the report, said Monday that there have been some improvements in conditions at the jail since she submitted the report.
Inmates are being let outside for outdoor recreation more regularly, she said, and broken windows have been replaced and appropriate locks have been installed in cell doors, instead of the improper padlocks that were being used.
But Johnson said that more substantial improvements will depend on three things being fixed.
First, she said, the overcrowding at the jail needs to be addressed — the facility is only intended to hold 152 inmates, with an ongoing expansion set to add 48 more, but it held 259 during a tour of the jail she took in August.
Second, Johnson said, is a severe staffing shortage at the facility.
“There’s not enough people working there, and that affects prisoners most of all since they can’t leave their cells without somebody letting them out,” Johnson said.
But third, she said, is the biggest problem: HCCC is an old building, stretched beyond its purpose, and it should be replaced.
Both Chung and Johnson acknowledged that replacing HCCC would likely be expensive. Chung estimated that a new jail capable of handling HCCC’s inmate population would cost $100 million at minimum, and Johnson said any new facility will require even more beds than initially appear on paper.
“There are some groups you can’t mix,” Johnson said. “You can’t put people with different security levels in the same cell. Family members, you can’t put them in the same cell, same with gang members. You can’t put sentenced and pretrial inmates in the same cell.”
Because of these requirements, Johnson said a new facility would need more than just 259 beds to handle HCCC’s inmates because of situations where certain beds are unavailable to certain inmates.
Chung said it is “not for (him) to say” exactly how the jail could be relocated — whether it remains as a jail with a secondary facility to handle overflow, or whether a new facility entirely replaces the jail — but asked for his fellow council members to join him in making a statement that the state Legislature could use to support funding for an eventual new facility.
The discussion also elicited testimony from residents who live near the jail.
Vianne Reis, who lives next door to the jail, called it a “failed facility,” and said that corrections officers are loud and abusive, and when asked to be quieter, have told her, “F*ck you, we do what we like.”
Reis said that neighbors are not notified of prisoner escapes and that violent and aggressive incidents around the jail. At one point, she said, a parked HCCC vehicle was shot at, and in September, Reis recalled a man hanging around the jail shouting homophobic slurs for several minutes before eventually leaving, without any corrections officers reporting him to law enforcement.
Cheryl Reis, Vianne’s mother, said that for 48 years she has lived with the jail’s windows directly visible from her home, which gives her a clear line of sight to inmates and vice-versa. On one occasion, she recalled, she was leaving her home to see a naked inmate exposing himself to her through the window.
“Remember Duncan Mahi (a Hilo man charged with abducting and sexually assaulting a teenager in September)?” Reis said. “If he makes bail, he walks directly out the front door of the jail and down the street to all of the schools.”
Other council members agreed with Chung and were surprised at the extent of the conditions described both in the report and in the Reises’ testimony.
Kona and Volcano Councilwoman Maile David lamented that the government hasn’t addressed the matter sooner.
“It’s really disheartening to think that things that are as serious as this get put down on the priority list,” David said. “I feel that this is public safety and protecting our citizens, and I feel this should be at the top of the list. Especially because of its location.”
Ultimately, the council members unanimously voted to pass the nonbinding resolution.
