LIHUE — As one of 17 states taking part in the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Hawaii is working to ensure that reducing prison populations will help offenders with treatment and programs while not placing the community at risk. JRI offers federal
LIHUE — As one of 17 states taking part in the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, Hawaii is working to ensure that reducing prison populations will help offenders with treatment and programs while not placing the community at risk.
JRI offers federal dollars to states to monitor and modify criminal justice systems. It is run under the U.S. Department of Justice in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts and technical assistance providers.
State Department of Public Safety Director Ted Sakai said the JRI offers a good approach and philosophy that requires an assessment for the level of risk to society in order to do smarter corrections. Hawaii has a unified correctional system, and the DPS operates both state prisons and county jails.
“Everybody is in prison for a reason and almost all of them need a program intervention,” Sakai said. “We need to identity what that is, and try to identify what was the cause of the inmate’s crime; whether a drug, lack of a job, or failed relationships, and then target the program accordingly.”
The number of crimes, arrests, and convictions in Hawaii decreased from 2000 to 2011. However, the inmate population grew by 18 percent to 6,000 during the same period.
After reviewing recommendations from the Council of State Governments, Gov. Neil Abercrombie supported JRI participation and established a focus group to work with community in April 2011. The group met with courts, public safety and community roundtable’s for the rest of the year.
The reports led to JRI legislation that was passed and signed into law in June 2012.
A new law requires a risk assessment tool to screen defendants before sentencing. It also adjusts an inmate’s earnings toward restitution, shortens probation for less serious felonies, allows probation for certain second-time drug offenses, and keeps low-risk offenders on work-release programs.
None of the JRI states have concluded their initial projection years, and so the full impact has yet to be realized, according to the Pew report. Hawaii has a projected 14 percent reduction in its prison population, from 6,101 inmates in 2012 to 5,277 in 2018.
The DPS describes JRI as a concept for shifting directions with corrections using tested and proved methods. It is not a federally funded program nor is it a federal initiative.
A state designs and implements its own JRI approach to incarceration depending on a their own needs and laws. The states apply for federal grants that relate to those objectives.
The Hawaii grant award is approximately $400,000. The DPS will use it for training and certification of the new inmate assessment tools.
Once the JRI passed the state legislature, Sakai said the DPS spent the next year training and certifying staff to implement the evidence based risk and needs assessment. Now with a foundation in place, he said it is possible to move forward and determine effectiveness.
The overcrowded facilities meant Hawaii was spending $40 million to send around 1,700 inmates to private facilities in Arizona.
