STAND. COM. REP. NO.  696

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2007

 

RE:   H.B. No. 457

      H.D. 1

 

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Public Safety & Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 457 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO INCARCERATED PARENTS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this bill is to support the expansion of parent-child interaction programs at state correctional facilities. 

 

     Your Committee finds that these programs strengthen families, reduce abuse and neglect of children of incarcerated parents, and decrease the rate of recidivism.  More specifically, the bill appropriates funds to the Department of Public Safety to contract with community agencies to establish and implement parent-child interaction programs at correctional facilities.

 

     The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Community Alliance on Prisons, Hawaii Youth Services Network, and Supporting Keiki of Incarcerated Parents (SKIP) Partnership submitted testimony in support of this measure.  Several individuals from the SKIP Kauai Makua Keiki Project (a coordinator for Good Beginnings, a program manager of the Kauai District Health Office, a parent educator, and three incarcerated individuals who participate in the SKIP project) and two private citizens also provided testimony in support.

 

     Your Committee finds that there are approximately 3,163 incarcerated parents of 6,665 children in Hawaii and that children of incarcerated parents are up to six times more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system themselves.

 

Your Committee also finds that studies show that strengthening family relationships has a positive effect on preventing recidivism and that involvement with families during incarceration builds better and stronger relationships between the incarcerated parent and the incarcerated parent's children once the parent is released.

 

     Your Committee further finds that successful parent-child interaction programs such as SKIP, which began at the Waiawa correctional facility and has since expanded to the Maui, Kauai, and women's community correctional centers, and the Kauai intake service center, is an effective program that benefits parents, children, and the caregivers of children of incarcerated parents.  SKIP has also been adopted by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as a model for a program for Texas prison inmates during the process of their reentry into the community.

 

     Your Committee has amended this bill my making technical nonsubstantive changes for purposes of style.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety & Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 457, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 457, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

 

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

 

 

 

 

____________________________

CINDY EVANS, Chair