Confidence, courage urged to heal crisis in Hawaii

Crisis in Hawaii concerns the criminal justice system, the judicial system and the Department of Public Safety.

Corrections back four, 10, 20 and 30 years is the fact that incarceration itself is a complete failure!

Criminologists and correctional professionals have recognized we have locked up too many social nuisances who are not real threats. Also, they see too many petty offenders and minor thieves pushed to more serious criminal behavior! We also incarcerate the mentally ill, and those people addicted to drugs and alcohol who have committed nonviolent offenses.

Prisons generally make these people worse. National commissions are looking at the abuses in the problems of prisons in America. Overcrowded facilities are more destructive of the human personality than ever before with fewer programs, availability of a family, or faith-based programs, and the aging process itself!

It is clear we need more rehabilitation centers and daily faith-based programs. This will help end sending the inmates to the Mainland facilities. All need rules and rights governing how prisoners should be treated and what prison staff can be asked to do. Everyone wears a uniform, eats the same food, follows the same schedule, a purely authoritarian state that tolerates no individuality!

The penal reform is essential for good governance to equal access to the justice system. Confidence and courage by all to heal this crisis in Hawaii.

Henrietta Pualani Hashimoto

Wailuku