The head of the state prison system plans to overhaul part of the minimum security Waiawa Correctional Facility in Central Oʻahu to create a new space for prisoners with mental illness who are now being held in the state’s largest prison.
The men who would qualify to transfer from Hālawa Correctional Facility to Waiawa would be minimum-security prisoners who are stabilized on their medications and are approaching their parole or release dates, according to Tommy Johnson, director of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“We’re looking at clearing out an entire dormitory and converting that to a more therapeutic environment for them,” Johnson said. “It’s a better environment than Hālawa, and it’s outdoors, and it’s considerably less restrictive, so we think that’s better.”
Waiawa is an minimum-security work camp in a fairly isolated area of Central Oʻahu about 3 miles from Mililani Memorial Park cemetery. It can accommodate up to 334 men, but as of last week housed only 189. The inmates there all participate in education or substance abuse treatment programs.
Johnson’s plan has won praise from some experts who worry about the limited mental health services available inside the prison system, but others are raising concerns.
Waiawa prison is in the state House district represented by Rep. Trish La Chica, who wondered what kind of care the inmates will receive at Waiawa that they can’t get at Hālawa.
“I’ve been there, it’s a minimum-security facility,” she said. “It was not designed or built to be a specialized mental health treatment facility. Everything is open. There’s no bars.”
Johnson said “walkaways” are a possibility at any minimum-security prison, but they are very rare. By the time inmates qualify to be housed in the open environment at Waiawa they are approaching their furlough or parole dates, “so why run? They worked to get there.”
To qualify for transfer to Waiawa, the inmates will have to be within 60 months or less of their release, he said. “They’ve earned their way there, and so they don’t want to mess that up and go back to Hālawa.”
Praise, But Also Concerns
Inmates with mental illnesses have long been a problem for the state correctional system, with hundreds of prisoners diagnosed with conditions ranging from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to severe depression. Suicides have been an ongoing problem, and last year the state settled a class action lawsuit over the lack of mental health services inside.
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Two mental health experts inspected Hālawa and the Oʻahu Community Correctional Center as part of that class-action settlement, and the experts found understaffed facilities where mentally ill inmates receive inadequate treatment. Corrections officials then sought millions of dollars in additional state funding from state lawmakers this year to hire dozens of new healthcare workers including psychiatrists and nurses to upgrade mental health services
The plan to move inmates to Waiawa is tied to that class action settlement. The outside experts who inspected state facilities under the settlement identified 63 male prisoners with mental health needs that could not be met at the prison, Johnson said, but were not so ill that they needed to be sent to Hawaiʻi State Hospital.
Corrections officials are now looking at transferring about 43 of those inmates to Waiawa, starting with about a dozen. The plan is to then continue rotating inmates with mental health conditions from Hālawa to the Waiawa dorm provided they are minimum security and stable on their medications.
Some Hālawa prisoners are so ill that they won’t qualify for Waiawa, Johnson said, and in those cases the prison will work with Hawaiʻi State Hospital to try to address their needs. He said some of the inmates with mental health issues who are left at Hālawa might quality for the state hospital or some other type of “step down” facility.
Hālawa has been overcrowded recently because inmates have been cleared out of one of the three housing modules at the prison while it undergoes repairs. Crews have been working to fix lighting equipment that was damaged by a leaking roof, Johnson said, but repairs to the lighting are not yet complete.
The original plan to ease the overcrowding there was to send some Hālawa inmates with mental health issues to a privately run prison in Mississippi, but the department dropped that idea. The environment at Waiawa is more therapeutic, Johnson said, “and to be perfectly frank, the optics of shipping mental health folks to the mainland is not good optics.”
Instead, corrections officials in June transferred about 38 medium-security prisoners from Hālawa to Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi, to ease the overcrowding in Hālawa, and are now preparing to move the 43 prisoners with mental health needs to Waiawa.
Are They Equipped?
Johnson told the Hawaiʻi Correctional System Oversight Commission earlier this month that in one sense, the movement of inmates to Waiawa will be nothing new.
“We have moved inmates for decades through all of our facilities who were stabilized on medication who are minimum custody,” he said, “so we’re not doing anything differently except in this particular instance we’re trying to address what the experts recommended, to provide them a more conducive environment for their recovery and their care and treatment.”
Martha Torney, a longtime state corrections administrator and a member of the oversight commission, praised the department’s plan, telling Johnson at the commission meeting that “I think it’s a good idea get them out of Hālawa.”
“If someone is minimum security, they should be in a minimum-security facility,” she said, “and I hope you are able to find the staff to provide the metal health services there, but I really do support that move.”
T.J. Cuaresma, vice chair of the Wahiawā-Whitmore Village Neighborhood Board, said in an interview it is critical the department employ qualified and experienced staff to provide the services needed by inmates with behavioral health or mental health challenges. “Because if you can’t provide that, then don’t even move them.”
“If this does happen, we want them to go there with the idea that they are going to be successful,” she said. “It really doesn’t make sense for you to take somebody from some place and put them into another location if there’s no wraparound or no supportive services.”
The department’s healthcare managers are working on a plan that would include daily 24-hour medical staffing and a psychiatrist for the facility, Johnson said, which needs to be in place before any of the new inmates are moved there.
La Chica said she still has questions about the move that she wants the department to answer. She raised concerns about the “safety and well-being” of both the staff and “whether they feel that they’re equipped and prepared to meet this type of special needs population.”
Based on her background in public health, La Chica said deliberations about placement need to start with the patient.
“You have to determine what level of facility, what level of care, what level of support the person needs,” she said. “And for me, it seems like the decision was made the other way around, where they selected the location first, and they’re kind of figuring out the plan as they as they move.”
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.