STAND. COM. REP. NO. 85

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 71

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 71 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PROGRAMS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make an appropriation to the Department of Public Safety to contract with community-based non-profit organizations to provide education, mentoring, restorative circles, farming, artisan skills, cognitive behavioral therapy, and cultural healing services to inmates and former inmates.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Public Safety, Community Alliance on Prisons, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Going Home Consortium, Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, Hawaii Coalition for Health, National Association of Reformed Criminals, and one individual.

 

     Your Committee finds that community-based organizations with an interest in assisting incarcerated persons have been instrumental in providing services and programs on a contractual and voluntary basis to rehabilitate and educate the prison population.  Providing rehabilitation and re-entry programs to Hawaii's inmates has lowered recidivism rates, which makes communities safer.  Sufficient resources must be invested in community-based non-profit organizations that provide important services to inmates and former inmates.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Replacing the term "cognitive restructuring" with "cognitive behavioral therapy";

 

     (2)  Adding education as a program offered;

 

     (3)  Clarifying that the references to inmates and former inmates mean inmates and former inmates who are under the custody and control of the Department of Public Safety or the Hawaii Paroling Authority; and

 

     (4)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 71, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 71, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

 

 

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair