STAND. COM. REP. NO. 484

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 49

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 49 entitled:

 

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

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Director of Public Safety to report any death of a correctional facility employee or inmate to the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and legislative committee chairs having primary responsibility for public safety issues.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office Of Hawaiian Affairs, Community Alliance on Prisons, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, and four individuals.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Public Safety.

 

     Your Committee finds that since the Department of Public Safety is responsible for the well-being of incarcerated people, an incident as compelling as the death of an inmate or that of an employee warrants immediate reporting.  This immediate notification would help to dispel rumors, inform anxious family members, and provide a communication link between what happens in a correctional facility and policy makers.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Extending the time limit on reporting a death from twenty-four hours to forty-eight hours in order to allow sufficient time to first inform the next-of-kin of the death; and

 

     (2)  Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 49, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 49, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

 

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

 

 

 

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair