Report Title:

Prisons; Publicly Built Prisons

Description:

Requires the department of accounting and general services to design, construct, and maintain a public prison to be run by public employees. Authorizes the issuance of general obligation bonds and makes an appropriation for this purpose.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

3104

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2006

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to correctional facilities.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that there have been a number of recent proposals to provide for a privatized correctional facilities in the State, including having a private contractor both construct and manage a private prison. The legislature, however, finds that the construction and management of a prison is a function that should be retained by state and county government, not the private sector. The number of security breaches at privately-run prisons in the continental United States has demonstrated that public safety should remain a government function, and not delegated to private vendors.

Moreover, the legislature finds that the construction and management of a correctional facility in Hawaii is a function that the State should already be performing. A publicly constructed correctional facility that is run by public employees would keep jobs in the State, reduce the State's overcrowded prison situation, and stop the transfer of inmates to correctional facilities on the mainland.

Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to require the department of accounting and general services to design, construct, and maintain a public prison to be managed by public employees and to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds and make an appropriation for this purpose.

SECTION 2. The department of accounting and general services shall design, construct, and maintain a public correctional facility to be managed by public employees, provided that the correctional facility shall be designed and operated as an intensive treatment facility. The facility shall specialize in treating those inmates in need of substance abuse treatment in a therapeutic community. According to each inmate's needs, the facility shall also provide a wide array of culturally and gender appropriate programs, mental health services, group counseling, anger management programs, transitional programs, cognitive restructuring, remedial education, and vocational training.

SECTION 3. The department shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 91 that specify minimum applicable standards for the siting, construction, operation, and physical condition of a public correctional facility and for the security, safety, health, treatment, and discipline of persons confined in that facility; provided that the rules shall conform to applicable American Correctional Association and National Commission on Correctional Health Care standards for the facility.

SECTION 4. The director of finance is authorized to issue general obligation bonds in the sum of $ , or so much thereof as may be necessary, and the same sum, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for fiscal year 2006-2007, for the purpose of designing and constructing a public correctional facility in the State to be managed by public employees for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 5. The appropriation made for the capital improvement project authorized by this Act shall not lapse at the end of the fiscal biennium for which the appropriation is made; provided that all moneys from the appropriation unencumbered as of June 30, 2008, shall lapse as of that date.

SECTION 6. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of accounting and general services for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 7. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2006.

INTRODUCED BY:

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