Bill Text: HI SR35 | 2013 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Corrections; Reentry Center; Day Reporting Program

Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-1)

Status: (Passed) 2013-06-07 - Certified copies of resolutions sent, 06-07-13. [SR35 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2013-SR35-Introduced.html

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THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	35
TWENTY-SEVENTH LEGISLATURE, 2013
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE RESOLUTION

 

 

encouraging the department of public safety to Seriously CONSIDER the establishment and implementation of a stand-alone reentry center in honolulu for recovering criminal offenders, which is to include residential and day-reporting program options.

 

 

     WHEREAS, reentry is an affordable, yet effective, process to promote public safety through collaborative partnerships that reflect a seamless system ensuring all returning offenders are law-abiding, productive community citizens; and

 

     WHEREAS, the State currently assumes responsibility for over 6,000 incarcerated individuals, an eighteen percent increase since fiscal year 2000, approximately 1,600 of whom remain housed in mainland prisons across the continental United States; and

 

     WHEREAS, in 2012, two Justice Reinvestment Initiative measures were enacted as Acts 139 and 140, Session Laws of Hawaii 2012, to increase the efficiency of Hawaii's correctional system by limiting the maximum probation term for certain Class B and Class C felonies, providing for intensive data-driven analyses by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, bringing home out-of-state prisoners, reducing corrections spending, reinvesting in effective strategies for reduced crime and recidivism, mandating reasonable timeframes for pre-trial risk assessments, requiring validation for these pre-trial risk assessments, limiting incarceration periods for first-time parole violators, and increasing restitution payments deducted from inmate earnings; and

 

     WHEREAS, reentry facilities house offenders in transitional environments while they learn to reengage with the community, find employment, and become familiar with the social services that will allow them to regain law abiding and productive lifestyles; and

 

     WHEREAS, community-based reentry centers are ideal short-term placement options for offenders scheduled for release upon serving non-violent, non-sexual sentences at longer term institutions, requiring readjustment after violating community supervision terms or assigned from local detention, courts, or other proper jurisdictions; and

 

     WHEREAS, recidivism rates have been consistently demonstrated by reentry centers across the nation to decrease by more than fifty percent, over five year periods, when compared against baseline recidivism rates associated with traditional incarceration; and

 

     WHEREAS, community-directed housing facilities are significantly more cost-effective than hard bed incarceration; and

 

     WHEREAS, reentry centers provide a realistic mechanism for the Governor to address his goal of returning inmates on the mainland to Hawaii, since the one-time total architectural and engineering construction costs for a reentry facility able to accommodate five hundred live-in residents through a public-private partnership is estimated to be $45,000,000, the equivalent to the cost of housing Hawaii inmates on the mainland for a single year; and

 

     WHEREAS, existing reentry processes in Hawaii operate through each prison, retaining offenders among the criminal elements reminiscent of their imprisonment terms; whereas a stand-alone reentry program would, by contrast, introduce recovering offenders to a more auspicious environment, facilitated by reentry specific case managers, counselors, job development specialists, medical professionals, maintenance staff, and security; and

 

     WHEREAS, proposed reentry initiatives highlight a "Three Phase Progressive Living" structure including: (1) intake processing periods not to exceed thirty days; (2) reentry readiness instructional programming and community service; and (3) community reintegration including financial responsibilities, counseling, and work experience; and

 

     WHEREAS, a day reporting program component overseeing nonresidential ex-offenders who continue treatment programs at the center around their work schedules would prove an invaluable addition to a reentry center for little additional cost; and

 

     WHEREAS, day reporting programs provide almost daily contact between offenders and their supervising staff members, as well as intense individual and group counseling, drug testing, and flash incarceration for those demonstrating reemerged criminal behavior; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-seventh Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2013, that the Department of Public Safety be encouraged to consider the construction and operation of a stand-alone community reentry center in Honolulu for non-violent, non-sexual offenders returning to the community after completing terms of incarceration or returning to custody after violating their terms of parole; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that reentry programs may include residential and non-residential programs for fully supervised offenders and a day reporting program designed to accommodate the schedules of reintegrated offenders living and working in the community; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor and Director of Public Safety.

 

 

 

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title: 

Corrections; Reentry Center; Day Reporting Program