STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1059

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 840

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 840, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Require the Director of Public Safety to contract for the planning and preliminary design for a secure correctional facility designed to provide intensive rehabilitation programs for mental health and chemical dependency treatment;

     (2)  Require the Director of Public Safety to submit a progress report to the Legislature by February 1, 2016; and

     (3)  Appropriate funds to the Department of Public Safety for the contract for the planning and preliminary design for the correctional facility.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Public Safety, State Procurement Office, and one individual.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from United Public Workers AFSCME, Local 646, AFL-CIO; Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice; and three individuals.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii, Community Alliance on Prisons, and Drug Policy Action Group.

     Your Committees find that the State's correctional facilities are extremely old and are in need of significant repair and maintenance.  The Oahu Community Correctional Center is a critical facility that is in need of repairs and upgrades.  Moving the Oahu Community Correctional Center's inmates and services to a new facility at the Halawa Correctional Facility, a location that is capable of accommodating a new multi-story facility if several older portions of the prison are torn down and replaced, furthers public safety and provides the State with a much-needed, modern correctional facility.  Implementation of this measure is a cost-efficient way to provide the State with an improved and modern correctional facility.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Deleting its contents and replacing it with the contents of S.B. No. 1268, Regular Session of 2015, which:

          (A)  Requires the Director of Public Safety to construct a multi-story correctional facility at the Halawa Correctional Facility to replace the existing Oahu Community Correctional Center;

          (B)  Authorizes the issuance of general obligation bonds and appropriates funds for the planning, design, and construction of the multi-story facility; and

          (C)  Inserts an effective date of July 1, 2015;

     (2)  Requiring the Department of Public Safety to hold a community partnering meeting to receive community input and comments regarding the multi-story correctional facility;

     (3)  Requiring the multi-story correctional facility to be a secure, minimum- to medium-security community correctional facility designed to provide intensive in‑house rehabilitation programs for the treatment of chemical dependency and abuse and other mental health problems;

     (4)  Requiring the multi-story correctional facility to be designed to be operated by the State with the capability of providing programs that address education, prevention, and treatment and are directed at preventing drug and substance abuse and treating other mental health problems; and

     (5)  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 Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 840, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 840, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

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

________________________________ JOSH GREEN, Chair

________________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair