STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1238

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.C.R. No. 82

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 82 entitled:

 

"SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A TASK FORCE TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A CORRECTIONAL TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICE,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to request the Department of Public Safety to establish a task force to make recommendations for the implementation of a correctional training and professional development office.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Public Safety.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Community Alliance on Prisons.

 

     Your Committee finds that maintaining a properly trained public safety workforce is vital to protecting the public's health, safety, and well-being.  Currently, the Department of Public Safety, which employs approximately two thousand five hundred individuals, lacks a standardized training program for correctional employees.  Your Committee finds that a proper training program for these employees would help to sustain a skilled and experienced workforce and assist these employees in better managing the inmate population of state correctional facilities.

 

     Your Committee understands from the testimony of the Department of Public Safety that the Department already operates a training academy that is providing instruction to employees.  Consequently, your Committee understands that the establishment of a new task force is unnecessary.

 

     Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Repealing the establishment of a new task force and all related task force requirements;

 

     (2)  Requiring that the task force established pursuant to H.C.R. No. 85, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, Regular Session of 2016, submit a report to the Legislature on the current status, staffing, resources, curriculum, and levels of staff participation at the Department of Public Safety training academy to the Legislature prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2018;

 

     (3)  Amending its title accordingly; 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 concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 82, as amended herein, and recommends that it be referred to your Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Ways and Means, in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 82, S.D. 1.

 


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

 

 

 

________________________________

CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair