STAND. COM. REP. 1056

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 634

S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 634, S.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR TWO COUNSELORS TO TREAT WOMEN INCARCERATED FOR DRUG-RELATED OFFENSES ON MAUI,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate an unspecified amount of funds to fund two drug treatment counselor positions on the island of Maui to treat women offenders who qualify for the drug court program.

Your Committee finds that the State's cost of putting an offender through the drug court program is $8,000 a year, as compared to $32,000 a year for incarceration. Currently, women offenders on Maui qualifying for the drug court program are sent to the mainland for treatment. Maui county provides funding for only six women each year to participate in drug treatment on the mainland at a cost of $62,400.

Your Committee further finds that women are the fastest growing inmate population at the Maui Community Correctional Center. Your Committee believes that this measure will give Maui women who are incarcerated on drug-related charges the chance to receive appropriate treatment through the drug court program and will offer them the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 634, S.D. 2, and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs,

 

____________________________

KEN ITO, Chair